New leadership and board of directors at archipelago
At the beginning of this Summer, Dirk D’herde stepped down as managing director of archipelago architects. His role has been taken over by Iwein Meyskens who, together with Françoise Haumont (managing director of archipelago Brussels) and Stef Vermeulen (managing director of archipelago Leuven) are responsible for the operational management of archipelago and its main offices.
As a founding partner of archipelago, Dirk has been a key driver of archipelago’s structural investment in Research & Innovation and its evolution into a collaborative organisation. Dirk will remain active within archipelago until the end of the year to ensure the transition, true to his values of “servant leadership”, before moving on to pursue other interests. The entire archipelago team would like to thank him sincerely for his dynamism and clear, innovative strategic vision, which have guided archipelago over the past seven years.
Furthermore, in line with its principles of collaborative governance, archipelago has chosen to strengthen the structure of its Board of Directors. The Board is made up entirely of members who are active within archipelago and reflects the company’s 100% internal shareholding, relying on the collective intelligence of its collaborators. Nicolas Van Oost will continue to chair the Board of archipelago architects, joined by Laurent Grisay and Kris Loix, who have been elected chairmen of the Brussels and Leuven entities respectively.
All members of the new Board are carriers of archipelago’s DNA and share responsibility for the management of the office. Together, they embody our care for architecture, care for our clients, care for our collaborators and care for our organization whose purpose is to design qualitative and contextual projects with a positive impact.
The new Board of Directors is composed of:
- Nicolas Van Oost – chairman archipelago architects
- Laurent Grisay – chairman archipelago Brussels
- Kris Loix – chairman archipelago Leuven
- Iwein Meyskens – managing director archipelago architects
- Françoise Haumont – managing director archipelago Brussels
- Stef Vermeulen – managing director archipelago Leuven
- Coen van den Wijngaart – director business development
- Maarten Lambrechts – director communications
- Joost Declercq – director research and innovation
- Eric Van Bourgognie – director research and development
- César Muyle – director project management
- Karol Gawlik – director office management
- Marijn Verlinden – director human resources
- Roland Roquiny – design director
- Michael Seys – archipelago curator
- Gerardo Solera – director atelier care
- Gilles Goffin – director atelier work
- Bert Dendooven – director atelier live