Mann+Hummel spends its days thinking about what should stay in and what needs to be filtered out. When Space Matrix began redesigning its Bangalore workplace, a similar question emerged: what needed to be filtered out of the workplace itself? The answer was fragmentation.
After almost a decade across multiple offices, Mann+Hummel’s Bangalore teams had gradually become separated by both geography and planning. Large L-shaped workstations and cubicles created private territories. Teams had fewer reasons to cross paths. The workplace was functional, but it no longer reflected the organisation it was meant to support.
And the timing mattered. Mann+Hummel was preparing to grow from around 100 people to more than 550. Scaling the existing model would only multiply the problem.
The move to Brigade Twin Towers provided the opportunity to rethink the workplace from the ground up. Rather than simply creating more seats, Space Matrix brought Bangalore’s operations together across two floors and reorganised them around department-based neighbourhoods.
The change is less about removing walls than removing distance between people. Functional adjacencies bring related teams closer together. Spill-over areas and quick discussion settings sit alongside everyday work. A flexible cafeteria adds another shared destination. Collaboration no longer has to be scheduled into a meeting room; it can happen in the spaces between formal work. This idea of clarity extends into the design language.
Mann+Hummel’s work in filtration became the conceptual starting point, interpreted through Seiso, the Japanese philosophy of cleanliness, order and purity. Instead of representing filtration literally, the workplace translates it into a gradual spatial journey, moving from industrial to pristine.
Materials and colour do much of the work. A green-to-grey palette creates a subtle progression through the space. A living green wall anchors reception. Environmental graphics draw from natural terrains, bringing a sense of landscape into an environment belonging to a highly technical global company.
Even the lighting picks up the narrative. Water-ripple-inspired feature lighting becomes a quiet reference to movement, filtration and flow.
The workplace’s performance layer follows the same thinking. Occupancy sensors, air-quality monitors and sensor-based fixtures make the environment more responsive, while natural light, biophilic elements, waste segregation and a dedicated wellness room address the people using it. The project is pursuing LEED Gold certification.
What makes the project interesting is that the brand idea and the organisational problem arrive at the same conclusion. Filtration is about creating a better environment by removing what does not belong.
The new workplace does something similar. It removes unnecessary separation, brings teams back into proximity and replaces a fragmented environment with one that is clearer, more connected and ready for a much larger organisation. The result is not just a workplace that can accommodate five times the people. It is a workplace designed to help them work as one.
