José Subero

Design director · Brand environments

I lead the design of brand spaces for global companies, from the first concept to the six-hundredth opening.

15+ years across retail, hospitality, workplace and public space, for Starbucks EMEA, ING, Miro and IWG.

15+years leading design
12+brands directed at IWG
1,200+stores, openings and projects delivered
20designers in a global team

Clients and employers

  • Starbucks EMEA
  • ING
  • Miro
  • IWG
Spaces Zuidas: a green sofa in front of a planted stair and a double-height glazed wall
Spaces, Zuidas, Amsterdam. Visualisation.

Selected work

Most senior role first

01 · IWGAmsterdam

Spaces, Zuidas

At IWG I led design for 12+ brands, with a 20-person team, across 630 openings. Spaces Zuidas refreshes the Spaces brand for Amsterdam’s business district.

Role
Global Design Director, design direction
Scope
Concept refresh, ground floor and mezzanine, standard product line
Team
20-person global design team
Partners
Spacestor, HAY, Signify, FLOS
Spaces Zuidas seen from the street, with the coffee bar and communal areas visible through the glazed facade
The glazed facade turns the interior into the brand’s shopfront on the South Axis. Visualisation.

The brief

Take the core Spaces concept and make it feel current, with a more layered mix of materials and furniture. The building is glazed on the street side, so every choice inside is seen from outside.

What I decided

A dark floor runs from the lobby into a coffee bar, then into a business club with a long communal table. A pop-up from a Scandinavian design brand and message boards give the brand a voice in the room. Upstairs, the mezzanine was extended for ceiling height, with perch seating facing the Zuidas.

A metal mesh stair arches over planting, and the same mesh returns as acoustic panelling along the mezzanine. I ran reviews and approvals with senior stakeholders, and built partnerships with Spacestor, HAY, Signify and FLOS.

Coffee bar with a white tiled counter under a double-height ceiling
Coffee bar at the entrance.
Long oxide-red communal table under a sculptural pendant light
Communal table in the business club.
Pink banquettes and a terracotta sofa along the glazed wall
Lounge and booths.
Timber-lined corridor with lounge chairs and planting beside the facade
Corridor along the facade.

Outcome

Products from Spacestor, HAY, Signify, FLOS and others joined IWG’s standard line, for this and other brands in the group.

Visualisations. Design direction by José Subero for IWG.

02 · MiroAmsterdam

Miro I

Miro’s first physical office. A company that grew up distributed needed a building made for hybrid work, and a place to test ideas for its other offices.

Role
Global Lead Design & Innovation
Scope
Positioning, creative direction and a technology roadmap for 11 offices
Context
Hypergrowth, from 350 to 2,000+ employees
Design partner
M Moser Associates
The 1920s brick building on Stadhouderskade with Miro-style cursors naming team members
The building on Stadhouderskade, with the team’s cursors.
Arched opening framing a white stair and balustrade
Clean, framed views: the 1920s building as the base layer.

The brief

Miro grew while distributed. Its main building had to support hybrid work, anchor the Amsterdam campus and make the European HQ visible.

What I decided

I positioned Miro I as a living lab: a place to try new ways of working, meeting and playing, and to show Miro’s hybrid tools to its own people and to clients. I set the creative direction and wrote the roadmap for the technology rolled out across 11 offices.

The building stays a calm, warm base. Miro’s layer sits on top: curved insertions, bold colour, temporary pop-ups and places to pilot new settings.

From brand pillars to design drivers

Miro’s four pillars, each turned into rules for the space

Collaboration

  • Mobile furniture
  • Incidental encounters
  • Variety of work spots
  • Co-labs
  • Culture building

Empathy

  • Approachable, friendly style
  • Spaces to unwind and let loose
  • Humour
  • Ergonomic and kinetic
  • Calm Nordic light palette

Impact

  • Bold shapes, pattern and colour
  • Digital experiences
  • Brand colours in materials and details
  • Experimental materials
  • Site-specific illustration

Iteration

  • Tech storage on display
  • Temporary design
  • The office as a tech lab
  • Pilot settings
Axonometric of the co-working café with an espresso bar, mixed seating and planting
Co-working café: a full espresso bar, mixed seating and planting, able to take overflow from the dining floor. Drawing by M Moser Associates.

Planting by zone

From staff workshops and the Miro I pilot

Collaborative

High

Planting softens the screens. Custom planters where impact counts, standard pieces where layouts change.

Social

High

Statement planters that lift energy and dampen noise. Loose pots as the flexible option.

Focus

Low

Staff said too much green distracts. Loose pots and hanging planters keep it light.

Silent

High, tall

Tall plants in custom planters enclose the space for rest and recovery, and absorb sound.

Botanical library with armchairs among large plants
Botanical library.
White corridor with timber floor and teal lounge chairs
Corridor through the building.

Outcome

A greenery system for Miro’s global offices, built on the Miro I pilot, and a technology roadmap for 11 offices.

Design partner and drawings: M Moser Associates.

03 · INGNine countries

ING House

A retail concept that brings hospitality to private banking. You bank the way you would at home.

Role
Senior Consultant, Workplace Strategy
Scope
Concept development for rollout in nine countries
Portfolio
135+ global projects
Links
Retail and workplace concepts, brand touchpoints
Black steel stair with timber treads beside a neon wall message
Entrance stair.
Glazed meeting room with timber shelving
Meeting room.

The brief

Scale ING House to nine countries, and find where it could share ground with the bank’s own workplace concept.

What I decided

I developed the concept further so each country could build it. I looked for shared efficiencies between ING’s retail and workplace concepts, in real estate footprint, design, procurement and sustainability.

I also aligned how the brand shows up across every touchpoint, so a customer meets the same ING in each market.

Lounge with an orange rug, armchairs and planting under an open ceiling
Lounge.
Bar and long table under a black steel frame with a neon sign
Bar and shared table.

Outcome

A concept developed for rollout in nine markets, with shared efficiencies across ING’s retail and workplace estates.

04 · Starbucks EMEA16 countries

450+ stores

Heritage houses, malls and airports across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Four stores in depth, two in brief.

Role
Senior Designer, then Design Manager
Scale
450+ stores in 16 countries
Awards
Store of the Year 2014, High Profile. 2015, Special Merit
Formats
Core, Reserve, heritage, travel

Casa Miranda

Puerto de la Cruz, Tenerife

A 17th-century house tied to the family of Venezuela’s founder, and one of the most recognisable heritage buildings in the Canaries. Approvals ran through the local council and the heritage and architecture boards.

We added a contemporary layer that respects the house and how it works. Concrete composites and brass sit against blonde oak, so old and new stay easy to read.

Concrete bar under original timber beams, with a carved door in the foreground
The bar under the original beams.
White Canarian facade with timber balconies on a cobbled street
Street facade.
Long hall with a coffered timber ceiling and seating along the walls
Upper hall.

Nişantaşı Reserve

Istanbul

Store of the Year 2015 · Special Merit

The first Reserve store in the market, in one of Istanbul’s most exclusive districts. The long, narrow site became a long black marble bar serving both core and Reserve coffee.

The coffee story is built into the architecture, with the materials kept in balance around it.

Storefront with timber doors between concrete columns
Storefront.
Black marble bar with brewing equipment and stools
The black marble bar.
Concrete column engraved with Starbucks Reserve beside outdoor seating
Entrance column.

Kanyon Reserve

Istanbul

Kanyon is a semi-open development shaped like a canyon, with sloping walls and terraces around an atrium. The store picks up on stone and territory, a nod to the volcanic soils behind Reserve coffees.

Stone bars come in polished and rough finishes. A silk-screened landscape on mirror adds depth and runs into a quieter room full of plants.

Angular stone bar with stools against a timber wall
Stone bar.

Mall of Istanbul

Istanbul

Store of the Year 2014 · High Profile

The brief asked for a fully open store that referenced a local park and felt welcoming, with ceilings dropping from 7 m to under 3 m.

A band of timber defines the storefront and backs the bar. Seating takes its cue from park benches, in natural wood and stone.

Open storefront under a slatted timber band in a marble-floored mall
The timber band.
Amethyst stone wall lit from behind beside window seating
Calle Navarra, BilbaoA former jewellery shop near the old town. The amethyst wall and glass chandelier left by the previous owner stayed as the store’s signature.
Airside store framed by a black steel perimeter structure
Eindhoven Airport, airsideA light steel perimeter defines the store and carries lighting and power for people about to fly. It keeps the transparency of the new terminal. Photo: Tychos’s Eye.
05 · Earlier workFrance and the Netherlands

Objects in public space

Fabric loop seats hanging under a building overhang
Proposed installation, Lille.

Loop

Tourcoing and Lille

CETI first prize · Futurotextiles

A public seat made from one strip of fabric, passed through a ring and stitched in a few places. It holds one or two people. Developed with Paula Colchero and the textile industry in Comines. I worked on it from concept to final product.

Blue tyre-track markings on asphalt drawn from the MINI logo
Track markings on the street.

Waiting Spots

Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven · with MINI

A public installation marking where taxis collected visitors between exhibitions, with tracks drawn from the MINI logo. With Paula Colchero and Izabela Boloz, built by Izabela Boloz and Kasia Zareba. I worked on concept, design development and technical drawings.

PerspectiveAmsterdam and São Paulo

What a city already has

Both studies start with something a city already has and nobody designed on purpose. In Amsterdam it is a colour. In São Paulo it was a billboard frame left empty by law. Each asks what that thing could carry next, through small, low-cost interventions.

Red, reread

De Wallen, Amsterdam · ongoing

As a resident of De Wallen, I study the red light that runs the district. The question is whether red can carry more than transaction without erasing what it is.

The sketches test small, reversible moves: the canal as a room, platforms on temporary leases for new concepts, planting along the water, and routes graded by the hue and intensity of light.

Pen sketch of low platforms at the canal edge, with trees and street lamps along the quay
Platforms at water level, opening the canal edge to the street.
Pen sketch of a floating structure with planting moored along a canal wall
Water structures with planting along the quay.
Plan sketch of three platforms stepping along one side of a canal, with stairs down from the street
Platforms in plan, leased to new concepts.
Four hatched vertical bands sketched in pen
The red spectrum across shutters, metal, canals and squares.
Three stacked sheets sketched in pen, marked with points, a winding route and circles
Lighting, routes and experiences as layers.
Plan sketch of a side street opening onto a canal, with people walking on both quays
Where a side street meets the canal.

Natureza Urbana

São Paulo · proposal

In 2007 São Paulo’s Clean City Law banned outdoor advertising. The billboards came down, and many of their steel frames stayed standing, empty.

Natureza Urbana proposed planting them, turning leftover infrastructure into gardens and public space. Companies sponsor a garden with no logo allowed, the city offers incentives, and sponsors are present through a web platform and the interventions themselves.

Black and white photo of an empty billboard frame against the sky, beside a street lamp and apartment blocks
An empty frame on the skyline.
Line drawing of a billboard frame whose post turns into roots
The frame as a planted structure.
Card sketch model of two posts carrying open frames, one reached by a ladder, with a small figure for scale
Sketch model: frames as platforms, reached by ladder.
Sketch model of two timber grids on angled posts over a small square
Frames as trellis.
Sketch model of a ramp leading to a panel with an oval opening
A frame as a threshold.
Sketch model of a tall folded tower with a stair and a lookout platform
A frame as a lookout.

In writing

2025 to 2026

A series on how belonging forms in shared places, written for the workplace sector and drawing on housing, cities and hospitality.

  • Visible design tells people what a space looks like. Invisible architecture tells people how it feels.
    The Invisible Architecture of Belonging
  • Communities do not form through accumulation. They form through shared values, clear gestures, and conditions that feel consistent over time.
    Designing for Belonging
  • One colour runs this neighbourhood. Nobody designed it, but it behaves like a civic identity.
    Red, reread

Belonging, a series

LinkedIn · read in order

All articles on LinkedIn

How I work

What I lead

  • Brand directionI set how a brand lives in space, from a company’s first office to the refresh of a format that already works.
  • Rollout across marketsI take one concept into many countries and keep it recognisable in each.
  • Standards and supplyI own the standards, product range and supplier partnerships that keep hundreds of sites consistent.
  • Teams and stakeholdersI’ve led a 20-person global design team and taken work through executive review and approval.

Background

  • Architecture, Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez Ureña
  • Master of Design, Design Academy Eindhoven
  • Grand Jury, FRAME Awards 2026, Work category
  • Panel speaker, Workplace Design Show Amsterdam 2025
  • English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch

Contact

info@josesubero.com
LinkedIn