DOI: 10.4324/9781003157571-20
15 Insurance, insurtech, and the
architecture of the city
Liz McFall
I realised on a business that old we had to build it outside the
company. So we bought some things in Hoxton Square – I think we
own about half Hoxton Square now.
(Mark Wilson, Aviva CEO 2016)
Introduction: Bubbles, bricks, and brands
Towards the end of The Street, Zed Nelson’s 2019 film tracking the remorseless gentrification of Hoxton in the East End of London, attention turns
to the building at 33–35 Hoxton Square. This, the sign outside announces,
is The Garage and it is immediately clear that it is no longer a garage. The
Garage is the UK insurer Aviva’s Digital Garage, opened in 2015, in an
effort to foster in-house, the kind of technological disruption traditional
insurers fear coming from outside. It is no accident that Aviva called their
new office The Garage, the building had functioned for many years as a
commercial garage, and Aviva held on to more than the name. They also
retained much of the appearance and fittings of its past functions – whitewashed brickwork, exposed services, even the garage turntable. This was
all part of an effort to create the kind of edgy, industrial warehouse look
favoured by tech industry start-ups, environments designed to encourage
people to ‘think differently.’
Aviva’s Digital Garage is a neat illustration of a new direction in the
kind of stories insurance companies use their buildings to tell. It is also an
example of the way insurance companies, as part of their dual structure as
providers of consumer products and investors in capital markets – and in
real estate assets specifically – have quietly transformed urban areas. The
Digital Garage is part of the Aviva ‘campus’ that stretches across four buildings purchased by Percussion Properties, a company set up by Aviva in 2015
and dissolved in 2018, to develop ‘a campus of refurbished buildings in a
vibrant and diverse London district’ (Rayner 2018).
Aviva’s Hoxton campus is one of the more visible examples of the role
insurance enterprises play in building and rebuilding the city. The campus was designed to be visible, part of Mark Wilson’s strategy, during his
15 Insurance, insurtech, and the
architecture of the city
Liz McFall
I realised on a business that old we had to build it outside the
company. So we bought some things in Hoxton Square – I think we
own about half Hoxton Square now.
(Mark Wilson, Aviva CEO 2016)
Introduction: Bubbles, bricks, and brands
Towards the end of The Street, Zed Nelson’s 2019 film tracking the remorseless gentrification of Hoxton in the East End of London, attention turns
to the building at 33–35 Hoxton Square. This, the sign outside announces,
is The Garage and it is immediately clear that it is no longer a garage. The
Garage is the UK insurer Aviva’s Digital Garage, opened in 2015, in an
effort to foster in-house, the kind of technological disruption traditional
insurers fear coming from outside. It is no accident that Aviva called their
new office The Garage, the building had functioned for many years as a
commercial garage, and Aviva held on to more than the name. They also
retained much of the appearance and fittings of its past functions – whitewashed brickwork, exposed services, even the garage turntable. This was
all part of an effort to create the kind of edgy, industrial warehouse look
favoured by tech industry start-ups, environments designed to encourage
people to ‘think differently.’
Aviva’s Digital Garage is a neat illustration of a new direction in the
kind of stories insurance companies use their buildings to tell. It is also an
example of the way insurance companies, as part of their dual structure as
providers of consumer products and investors in capital markets – and in
real estate assets specifically – have quietly transformed urban areas. The
Digital Garage is part of the Aviva ‘campus’ that stretches across four buildings purchased by Percussion Properties, a company set up by Aviva in 2015
and dissolved in 2018, to develop ‘a campus of refurbished buildings in a
vibrant and diverse London district’ (Rayner 2018).
Aviva’s Hoxton campus is one of the more visible examples of the role
insurance enterprises play in building and rebuilding the city. The campus was designed to be visible, part of Mark Wilson’s strategy, during his