“Our studio was founded in 2008 and has always been here. It is actually the continuation of an activity of my father Jean-Paul Mathen, who was also a civil engineer and architect and started here in 1976. We founded the company when I returned from Lausanne in Switzerland, where I spent part of 1998 and 1999 studying at the École Polytechnique Fédérale. From 2001 to 2005, I worked in Geneva. In 2005, I was an architectural assistant at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). In Switzerland, among other projects, I worked mainly on two schools. When I returned to Belgium, I also wanted to participate in competitions and tenders to develop a few more schools so that I could accept public commissions, including schools,” explains Ir-Architecte Jean-Christophe Mathen, director of AAM – Atelier d’Architecture Mathen, out.
AAM has already designed several schools. In 2008, it won the competition for its first school, which received an Arch School Award in Flanders in 2016. “This competition is held a few times. A year or two later, we submitted applications for two other schools we had worked on, each time nominated for the same awards: a special school in Schaerbeek and the renovation of a school in Jodoigne. We were nominated for the same awards each time. We also won the Grand Prix d’Architecture de Wallonie for public housing in Wavre,” says Jean-Christophe Mathen.
AAM has seven full-time employees, including four engineers, two architects and an administrative assistant. The studio operates mainly in Brussels and Wallonia. It does not concentrate on sports facilities, but does design (or renovate) schools, such as the municipal school in Yvoir and the special school in Schaerbeek. This year, AAM was also invited to participate in a competition for a crematorium in Niort, France.
