DSM headquarters wins China’s most successful design Award 2011

NorthernLight is proud to announce that their design, created together with partner company Mattmo, for the brand experience at the DSM headquarters in Shanghai has won China’s Most Successful Design Award 2011.

China’s Most Successful Design Award

China’s most successful design award is an international competition aimed at honoring outstanding design and design influence in China. The awards recognise excellence in the strategic and social impact of design, as well as marketing and financial success. It has been created to empower, elevate and reward the individuals, teams and companies that make up the design industry. Our awards are showcased to the business world and society, bringing higher profit and recognition through the alignment of precision technique and design processes.

Twofold design strategy

The brief was to reinvent the public space in the ground floor of the DSM campus in Shanghai. The strategy of the reinvention was twofold. The first assignment was to create a warm and transparent environment for the employees of DSM and so we were responsible for the art direction of the building’s public spaces.

In the first phase we totally restructured the building logistically, redecorated all interior and introduced new interior furniture. We aimed to create a pleasant environment that catered for the different needs of a modern company; small informal meetings and big important board meetings.

The second assignment was to tell the DSM story. The DSM identity is that the company (e.g. DSM’s products) can be found in almost every aspect of our environment. We captured this with the “DSM touches you” concept. In the interior we tried to use as many DSM products as possible, labeling them to highlight their significance. We also created a physical timeline in the building that guides visitors from the lobby into the building. It also tells the story of DSM from the company’s beginning in the early 1900s to the present day. In five lines of cylinders the DSM DNA is explained with photos, interactive stations, movies, animations and displays.