IBM has a long history of commissioning pioneering designers and architects to create physical spaces and environments that represent its services and products. In 1956 legendary American graphic designer Paul Rand created its logo; Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen Associates designed its pavilion for the 1964 NY World's Fair; and in the same year Japanese-American artist and landscape architect Isamu Noguchi designed the gardens for its headquarters in Armonk, NY.
In 2016, along with our sister studio Map Project Office, we were invited to create a new global headquarters to showcase the technologies of IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT)—a managed, cloud-hosted service designed to make it simple to derive value from your IoT devices. Located in the Highlight Towers in Munich, an investment of over $200M was made into the Centre, housing over 1,000 IBM employees, shared laboratories with IBM clients and client experience zones.The space was envisaged to be utilised by companies seeking to transform their business operations by using a combination of Watson cognitive technologies and IoT.
With this in mind, the creative team developed a new design language to represent IBM Watson IoT and an approach to explaining the complex nature of cognitive computing and the Internet of Things, using physical installations and experiments rather than overuse of screens.
Working closely with the IBM team and Map, we transformed the ground floor lobby and 20th floor of Highlight Towers in Munich, originally designed by Murphy/Jahn Architects in 2004. Our design approach was to make tangible what cognitive computing data and IoT is, making the product and its narrative accessible to the end-consumer.