Michelin, Ambassador Office Building

How flexxica shaped the Michelin Office in Warsaw

There are offices where brand identity is applied like wallpaper logos here, corporate colours there, and a mascot near the entrance. And then there are offices where the identity runs all the way through, where you can feel the brand in the geometry of the furniture, the texture of the ceiling, the way the light falls. Michelin's Warsaw headquarters at the Ambassador Office Building, designed by Colliers Define, belongs firmly to the second category. The project received a prestigious Gold Award in the Global Future Design Awards 2025: "The Michelin Office in Warsaw is a space that reflects the brand’s character by incorporating forms and shapes that reference its identity. At the same time, it is a user-friendly environment that introduces home-like features to break up the office décor."

The brief for Colliers Define architects Zuzanna Jaszczuk, Magdalena Kubicka, Zuzanna Świątek and Jakub Jaworek was to create a space that reflects the character of one of the world's most recognisable brands while remaining genuinely human to work in. The answer was to draw from the brand's visual DNA without quoting it literally. The circular form of the tyre becomes the spatial grammar of the entire 1,800 m² interior. Rounded edges appear in the reception desk, in the soft lines of the furniture, in the acoustic panels of conference rooms whose curved surfaces quietly echo tyre tread patterns. The brand's signature navy and blue appear as accents throughout in floor finishes, ceiling details, and furniture trim, never dominant, always present. Bibendum, Michelin's century-old mascot, also makes his appearance, but as a considered graphic gesture rather than a novelty.

The open-plan working area is where the lighting concept reaches its fullest expression, with flexxica's Alpha Round pendants taking centre stage. The floor plan of the building is itself curved, and the designers responded with an unusual workstation layout: triangular desks arranged in clusters that follow the building's arc rather than fight it. The result is an open space that feels organised without feeling regimented, generous without feeling empty. Large gaps between workstations give each person genuine room to consciously prioritise comfort and breathing space over density. Against this backdrop, the Alpha Round pendants do something essential. Each workstation receives its own pendant, positioned directly above, bringing light down to a personal scale. What could easily become visually chaotic- dozens of individual lamps suspended across a large open floor- instead reads as rhythm. The circular forms hover in loose constellations, their soft, even downlight creating islands of warmth within the broader space. Individual lighting at each workstation creates an intimate atmosphere, introducing a more domestic character that breaks the conventional office aesthetic.