“Rethinking the workplace – Actively shaping change” CSMM designs an agile office concept for Air Liquide

Air Liquide commissioned architecture and consulting firm CSMM to design its Dusseldorf office. The brief was to create a modern workplace spanning 4,500 square metres and to ensure the staff played an active role in the transformation.

Munich, 26.08.2025 – When Air Liquide decided to move to a new office, they weren’t just changing their location. The decision was part of a major cultural and organisational transformation—moving away from a traditional workplace with partitioned offices to an open-plan New Work model. For the company leadership, it was a top priority to involve staff in the design process right from the start, as a means of securing buy-in for the new way of working but also to embrace change management as an integral part of the project. Air Liquide partnered with JLL, a global leader in real estate services, to guide the change process in a series of employee workshops and brought CSMM on board as the main design team.

Together, they centred the project around needs-based planning and staff participation, recruiting so-called “change agents” from various departments to act as multipliers and catalysts within the company. The first step was to establish a shared understanding of spatial relationships and design principles. CSMM helped the participants learn the basics in architecture and design in an effort to better understand how spaces impact people. Once everyone was communicating on equal terms, what seemed unfamiliar and abstract to them at the outset evolved into a powerful experience rooted in ownership and belonging. After all, the main objective was a listening exercise, encouraging staff to talk about the way they work, share ideas about possible design solutions and create vision boards based on the responses.

We wanted to give the project a personal touch with a colour and material palette inspired by staff contributions. “In change processes like these, having an engaged, dedicated team is the key to success,” says Tiziana Feighofen-Longo, Studio Lead at CSMM Dusseldorf. “We were very fortunate that everyone involved had such a clear vision. To encourage the staff to engage with us as designers, we explored our material library together and created collages with different combinations of materials.”

Making an impact through collaborative design

And just like that, we found ourselves immersed in a creative and collaborative design journey with the aim of bringing structure to this oval-shaped office and making it both more inspiring and easier to navigate. As the project progressed, the participants became more objective in their approach, weighing the pros and cons and engaging in a lively debate. The final cloverleaf design was the result of close collaboration and hands-on involvement from the Air Liquide staff. “The interactive workplace design workshop was a very positive experience for me—and not something I would have ever expected,” says Tim Harmes, Business Developer for Large Industries at Air Liquide. “It was particularly inspiring to hear so many different points of view. Brainstorming with a team of coworkers and designers was a great way to find practical solutions for our day-to-day challenges at work.”