Atlas Copco Group is a world-leading industrial company that develops and manufactures air compressors, vacuum solutions, industrial power tools, and assembly systems. Their German site in Essen has around 400 employees and brings together both production and sales operations under one roof. In December 2026, they moved into a new headquarters, designed to foster and enable collaboration and communication.

The relocation marked an important moment, as it was an opportunity to not just move desks, but to fundamentally rethink how people work together.

Atlas Copco Group came to this project with a clear vision: a new office where collaboration sits at the heart of everything, and where employees have the flexibility to choose how and where they work depending on what the moment requires. Whether the employees need focus or want to collaborate with others, the goal was to create an environment that actively fosters connection and innovation. By creating a modern environment that fosters exchange and encourages innovative solutions for their clients, Atlas Copco Group wanted to create the foundation for the company's future. Veldhoen + Company collaborated with the Atlas Copco Group to translate that vision into something concrete.

This started with understanding the people: the different teams, legal entities, and working styles that would need to coexist in the new building. From there, we developed a new ways-of-working concept that became the foundation for the new working environment. Alongside the physical concept, we designed and delivered a change and training programme to bring employees along for the journey.

For organisations navigating the shift to hybrid working, the risk is that the office becomes a place people feel obliged to come to rather than one they want to come to. By investing in both the physical environment and the cultural groundwork, Atlas Copco Group has given the new workplace a genuine purpose: to bring production and office employees closer together, to make collaboration easier across departments, and to signal to current and future talent that this is a company worth working for.