Designed by a collaborative M Moser team effort in Singapore and Hong Kong, the office was Masan’s first outside its native Vietnam and makes a bold statement of the Group’s heritage and ambitions. A particular highlight of the design is an expansive water feature and ‘floating’ glass-encased conference room. Team members working on the project from M Moser in Singapore included Nirmala Srinivasa, Eliza Reyes, Adam Bentley, Chris Yeo, Kim Horng Teng, Jet Brillantes, Kenneth Chiam, and Christine Ho. Ziggy Bautista collaborated on the design from M Moser Hong Kong. The Masan project won a ‘Merit’ award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in Hong Kong; and an ‘Excellence’ award from the Asia Pacific Interior Design Association (APIDA) in 2013.

1. Design plays a hefty
role in the positioning of
Masan Group with its
new Singapore office.
Over the past three years, the Masan Group has
undergone a drastic metamorphosis. Originally
a Vietnamese family-run food company, it
became an overnight business sensation with a
firm hold in Vietnam’s banking, resources and
fast moving consumer goods sectors when it
brought its new CEO Madhur Maini on board.
Continuing on their mission to grow as a
business, the company wanted to set up an
office in Singapore and sought the help of
design firm M Moser Associates to create a
space that accurately portrays what the
company is about.
“Madhur wanted the space to represent what
Vietnam – and more specifically, Masan as a
business – would be in the future,” says Nirmala
Srinivasa, Design Senior Associate at M Moser.
Considering that it was not too long ago that it
was still a traditional Vietnamese business, it
was also important that the space maintain
some relations to its roots.

2. The entry into the space was one of the first
issues the design team tackled as they focused
on what visitors would see when they step into
the office from the lift lobby. With minimal staff
to accommodate in the Singapore office, most
of the 4,000sqft space could be used quite
freely. The office spreads out in an expansive
sweep, back dropped by the sumptuous view of
the Marina Bay.
Underlining everything is a quiet, if
considerable, body of water that extends as a
moat around the main conference room.
“Madhur’s question to us was, ‘What would
make the space iconic?’ – something that would
link both Singapore and Vietnam,” recalls
Srinivasa. The idea of the river became a strong
conceptual thread that bound both countries,
with Singapore having been a trading port
which saw the Singapore River playing a
leading role, and the Mekong River in Vietnam
still being a source of livelihood for its people.
The connotations that came with this concept
could not be more apt for the project – the river
as a source of life and renewal; the river as a
fluid, dynamic element.
Understandably, there were technical issues to
be considered. For one, office building floor
slabs are rarely designed to take the weight of a
large volume of water. As such, what was
originally meant to be a 150mm-deep water
body was reduced to a shallow 30mm-deep
pool.

3. “If this thing leaked, it would not just flood this
space, but the way buildings are constructed
with a pocket at the edge, it would flood the
space below as well,” Srinivasa explains.
Needless to say, phenomenal effort went into
making sure that never happens.
In designing the office, M. Moser Associates
with Ziggy Bautista as lead conceptual designer,
was always aware that an Asian identity had to
be incorporated into the design. What is
laudable about its endeavour, however, is that it
deliberately avoids too literal a translation,
choosing instead to capture the spirit of what it
means to be Asian. The symbolic and wholly
poetic body of water is but one example. Also
taking the idea of Asian subtlety on board, the
design team incorporated Masan Group’s logo
as a series of stepping stones on the water as
opposed to blatant logo placement.
The ideas of transparency and privacy also
came into consideration. The design team
proposed glass partitions throughout the office
to emphasise the generous amount of space
available. At the same time, there were other
factors to consider. The Vietnamese culture,
being more conservative, pointed to a need for
some privacy within the office. This resulted in
leather privacy panels on glass partitions, each
one a deconstructed Masan logo that was
stitched together. This effectively provided
privacy but also retained a sense of
transparency throughout the office. residential,
a little more hospitality. The furniture we
selected was very iconic – something you can
imagine putting in your study,” says Bautista,
referring to the sense of familiarity and comfort
the design team was also trying to create.