House of Communication

The House of Communication of the Serviceplan Group is rooted in the company's open and collaborative philosophy, giving a unique spatial identity to the innovative communications group of the world's largest owner-operated agency. It is located in the iCampus, the full innovation district near Osterbachhof in Munich, developed by R&S Immobilienmanagement. The design connects three independent buildings through bridges, bringing together 40 different agencies and 1,700 employees under one roof. Henn Architects designed the headquarters as a small city, a concept called office urbanism: like a city, the House of Communication contains, beyond meeting rooms and individual work areas, gathering, dining and leisure spaces. Henn introduced an interior central axis connecting the atriums of all three buildings, in collaboration with RKW Architekturplus and KAAN Architecten. This axis, called the Path of Innovation, is also the main circulation route and runs through the ground floor of the entire building. Visitors enter via a striking six-metre-wide staircase from the entrance; the destinations connected by the path are emphasised by a 130-metre light installation. The project is a Munich headquarters that treats a campus of three office buildings as a walkable city, with bridges, a central path and shared amenities that encourage interaction among 1,700 employees from 40 agencies. It is a demonstration of how a large advertising group can use urbanistic spatial strategies to break down organisational silos, producing a workplace that is both efficient and socially rich.