When undertaking workplace design projects, loss of design and planning data, and complicated flows of communication can seem inevitable. It is especially difficult to get relevant information to everyone who needs it. This leads to disagreements and delayed projects. When Northern Trust joined forces with Space Matrix Design Consultants to design their new office, they found themselves up against these very relatable design and stakeholder communication challenges.

By using Saltmine’s Strategy, Design and Budget modules, Northern Trust and Space Matrix were able to communicate more efficiently. Together, the two businesses made design decisions that worked.

Saltmine is such a collaborative way of working that reduces friction and makes our jobs as designers much easier. It was something I had never seen before in the industry,” says Titir Dey, Design Director at Space Matrix Design Consultants.

Space Matrix started by using the data gathered from the first and second phases of Northern Trust’s Pune workspace development. They then employed Saltmine’s Strategy module to build an accurate space program that was in line with Northern Trust’s existing floors.

“We were able to better communicate our design thinking and effectively engage them earlier in the design process with Northern Trust."

Using Saltmine, the Northern Trust and Space Matrix teams designed a new workspace that embodied Northern Trust’s growth mentality.

Integrated platform made for diverse teams

But it wasn’t just the collaboration between the two companies that became easier. Northern Trust’s teams and stakeholders didn’t need to be experts with design to make collective decisions that benefited their new workplace.

By working with an all-in-one platform, everyone involved was able to collaborate and feedback meaningfully. They identified changes and preferences through visualization, sharing ideas and strategies and keeping project data on the cloud.

This collaborative approach sped up the process significantly. They found themselves reaching decisions faster and minimizing the number of iterations made. They cut the concept design phase from 38 days to 22, making it easier and faster to create the workplace that benefitted them, their business, and their employees.

"Partnering with Saltmine brought about a transformative change in the way we work across our workplace projects,” says Sanjeev Tullicherry, Senior Vice President and Head Workplace Services APAC at Northern Trust. “Within the concept design phase itself, we were able to save more than 40% in timing.”

Making their own design decisions became easier too. Stakeholders were able to understand the rationale behind Space Matrix’s design decisions through the alternate tagging feature. This meant they could effectively toggle between design options, making simple tradeoffs through the software; a cluster of workspace was replaced with a huddle zone, and sliding partitions changed to skyfold partitions, instantly showing the change in aesthetics and cost implications.

These alterations were made easy through the 3D walkthrough, where stakeholders could visualize the line of sights within the floorplan. This helped them to understand how, by changing a few solid partitions of glass, they could maximize sunlight throughout the office.
“The real-time collaboration in a 3D immersive environment truly enabled us to make better-informed decisions that created high impact to our employees' well-being and productivity,” Sanjeev adds. “This is something we could not have done with traditional static images and 2D plans.”