The New PRF Headquarters Building began not with a blank page, but with a history. For over twenty years, Impare Arquitectura has accompanied the growth of PRF Gas Solutions, S.A. - a company operating at the intersection of industry and technology in Leiria, Portugal. This expansion project is, in that sense, as much a continuation of a relationship as it is a work of architecture. That accumulated knowledge of the client, their culture, and their way of working became one of the most decisive tools in the design process.

The brief called for the expansion of administrative, storage, and workshop areas to accommodate the company's sustained growth. But from the outset, the ambition extended beyond the functional: this was an opportunity to give architectural form to a new phase in PRF's development, to build something that would reflect not just the company's current needs, but its identity, its maturity, and its trajectory.

One of the central challenges was establishing a coherent relationship between the new building and the existing complex without simply replicating what was already there. The decision was made early on that the new volume should assert its own architectural character - a steel frame clad in aluminium composite panels, chosen for their lightness, durability, and capacity to animate the façade through a rhythm of projections and recesses - while maintaining the volumetric alignment and roofline of the original building. The result is a dialogue between two structures built at different moments, each with its own identity, yet reading together as a unified ensemble.

The programme presented its own spatial challenges. The site's topography allowed the large warehouse and automation areas to be embedded below street level, keeping the logistical circuits discreet and separate from the administrative routes above: a hierarchy of access that shapes the building's internal experience from the moment of arrival. On the upper floor, the design sought to balance the competing demands of collaboration and concentration, combining an open workplace of approximately 40 desk positions with meeting rooms, soundproof booths, a cafeteria, and a management office, all organized around the quality of the interior environment.

The double-height entrance atrium emerged as the building's defining spatial gesture, a space where all circulation routes converge, and where the relationship between the new and existing buildings becomes immediately legible. From this point, an enclosed gallery, a continuous balcony, and an elevated platform extend outward, connecting the two structures and creating a sequence of spaces for movement, pause, and gathering that goes beyond mere circulation.

What the project ultimately demonstrates is that expansion need not mean disruption. With the right criteria - and the right relationship between architect and client - it is possible to grow without losing coherence, to build something new without erasing what came before.