At work in Unilever City

Dove, Ben & Jerry’s, Cif and Knorr: brands we all know and part of multinational Unilever. Silo developed a spatial branding strategy for the new Unilever Benelux headquarters that celebrates the brands’ diversity and connects them. The result is an inspiring office environment contributing to a strong organizational identity for Unilever.

Client

Unilever Benelux

Partners

Architect: Mecanoo, illustration developed in collaboration with Senne Trip & Megan Vos

Spatial branding with strategic importance

Unilever’s brands and products are linked at a strategic level by shared values and purpose. The ingenious logo on all products makes this visible. The headquarter offices are the ultimate location to translate this strategy into the spatial environment. The interior reflects connectedness: you tacitly experience the themes that Unilever considers most important.

Office as an urban environment

Mecanoo designed the interior like a thriving city. The multifunctional cabinet system brings order to the collection of brands and forms the facade of a central axis with adjacent quarters for the various departments.

Walls are clad in felt reliefs made from recycled PET, in line with Unilever’s ambition to reduce the amount of new plastic in its packaging radically. Cut-outs and unexpected combinations of logo fragments lend the relief an abstract appearance.

Mapped timeline

The various stories of the brands and the history of Unilever are detailed in an immense visual story echoed throughout the interior. Unilever City is populated by hundreds of unique characters bringing familiar products to life. Key innovations from the past, legendary campaigns and sustainability ambitions: the illustration is an ultimate conversation starter.

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A hub for every division

Special brand hubs for the various divisions – Beauty & Personal Care, Home Care, Refreshment, Foods and Food Solutions – represent storefronts with their own atmosphere and look. Here customers are welcomed, informal discussions can take place and products are presented and tested. In the brand hubs, famous brands are placed on a pedestal.