Design-Led Research & Innovation Lab

Environments shape
how we feel.
We design the ones
that help people thrive.

Hinoki Ma is an applied design and innovation lab designing adaptive human environments that support restoration, regulation, and resilience across cities, workplaces, hospitality, and healthcare.

Explore the Lab Collaborate with us

Hinoki Ma — Systems Visual

Adaptive environments · Sensing & intelligent systems · Environmental psychology · Behavioral design · Cultural intelligence

What is Hinoki Ma

Ma (間) — the space between, where experience takes shape.

More than wellness. More than architecture.

Hinoki Ma works where disciplines rarely meet: environmental psychology, sensing technologies, materials science, behavioral design, and cultural intelligence.

We study how light, sound, materiality, atmosphere, and environmental signals shape how people think, feel, recover, focus, and connect.

Adaptive environments Sensing & intelligent systems Environmental psychology Material intelligence Behavioral design Cultural intelligence

Environments are never neutral. They shape human experience every day.

HM-LAB-001
Composition
35%Curiosity
25%Human Insight
20%Cultural Intelligence
15%Environmental Awareness
05%Serendipity
Origin
Seoul × Amsterdam × Everywhere
Care Instructions
Observe before judging
Listen before designing
Measure before scaling
Leave room for wonder
Quality Verified Made for People

Why Now

The future of environments is human.

As cities, workplaces, and public spaces become denser, faster, and more digitally mediated, the human experience of those environments can no longer be treated as an afterthought.

Burnout, overstimulation, cognitive fatigue, loneliness, and environmental stress are not abstract problems.
They are design problems.

Hinoki Ma develops frameworks for environments that support human restoration, focus, regulation, and resilience, combining environmental psychology, sensing technologies, and applied design.

This is not a wellness trend. It is infrastructure for the next generation of human environments.

Our Work

Four modes of practice.

01

Applied Research

We develop frameworks for adaptive environments by translating environmental psychology, sensing technologies, and behavioral research into design intelligence the field can use.

02

Design & Prototyping

We design spatial and material concepts for adaptive human environments, and prototype them at the scale that lets us test what actually works.

03

Strategic Advisory

We work with hospitality, healthcare, workplace, and civic organizations rethinking how their environments shape human experience. From strategic framing to applied implementation.

04

Pilot Programs

We design, run, and measure pilots that test adaptive interventions in real environments. Where research becomes evidence, and evidence becomes specification.

Use Cases

Where our work takes shape.

Hinoki Ma is being built in Seoul, a uniquely positioned vantage point for working at the intersection of advanced technology and human experience design. The streams below are united by one question: how do the conditions around us shape human experience, and how can people navigate them better?

Current Research & Applications

Current Research · Seoul 2026
The Lab's Core Methodology

Human Wayfinding Framework™

Understanding how people navigate complexity, opportunities, environments, and transitions. An ongoing research initiative exploring how different people experience the same city, system, or ecosystem in radically different ways. Through interviews, mapping, and pattern recognition, the framework identifies the conditions that influence orientation, recovery, decision-making, and human flourishing.

Interviews + mapping + pattern recognition
Method
Seoul Emotional Index (SEI) · Field Research, Seoul 2026
Current application
Living in Seoul? Take part in the research →
Active Commercial Application
Brand Intelligence + Wellbeing Ecosystem

Korean Wellbeing Brand Intelligence™

The framework applied to a market. A senior brand evaluation system for international clients navigating Korea's wellbeing economy. Hinoki Ma assesses brands across the full spectrum of touchpoints, identity, product, ritual, retail experience, and cultural fit, and scores them through the GBXS Index™ (Gaby Brand Experience Score), a proprietary system that translates field observation into actionable intelligence for sourcing, partnership, and market entry decisions.

Senior brand evaluation + GBXS Index™
Method
Skincare, haircare, personal care, longevity, lifestyle
Sectors

Emerging Directions

Open to advisory engagements
Hospitality + Restoration

Restorative Environments for Hospitality

The framework applied to experiences. An applied design approach for hospitality environments that go beyond aesthetic luxury, using materiality, acoustic design, circadian lighting, and spatial sequencing to support genuine human restoration for guests who arrive overstimulated, tired, and in need of real rest.

Advisory & applied design
Mode
Hospitality
Sector
In exploration
Adaptive Environments — Research Streams

Adaptive Environments for Focus, Restoration, and Transit

The framework applied to spaces. Hinoki Ma is exploring how adaptive environments, combining sensing technologies, biophilic design, and intelligent systems, can support human states across two contexts: workplaces designed for focus and restoration, and high-density transit hubs in need of moments of decompression. Environments designed around how people actually focus, recover, and connect within the systems they inhabit daily.

Sensing + intelligent systems + spatial materials research
Method
Workplace, Public transit
Sectors

Founder

Gabriela
León-Hung

Designer · Strategist · Systems Thinker

25+ years Global practice

Gabriela has spent more than twenty-five years at the intersection of brand, human behavior, and emerging technology, from Landor's brand strategy practice to TomTom's global product design, into IoT and AI ecosystems.

Her work has consistently followed one question:

How do systems shape human experience, and what should they make possible?

At TomTom, she translated advanced navigation technology into experiences designed for real cognitive conditions. In IoT and AI ecosystems, she co-founded ventures exploring when technology genuinely serves human needs, and when systems instead ask people to adapt to them.

Across product design, branding, innovation strategy, and venture building, the same discipline remained constant: designing systems that work for people.

Hinoki Ma is the continuation of that work, applied to the environments where people live, work, recover, and connect.

Shaped in Seoul, where advanced technology and time-tested principles of human experience still coexist in daily life, the lab explores the next generation of human environments.

The lab works through teams and networks, because meaningful environmental innovation is never built alone.

Gabriela León-Hung presenting the Hinoki Ma label system on stage in Seoul
Gabriela presenting the Hinoki Ma label system. Seoul, 2026.

Built for Collaboration

Who we collaborate with.

Hinoki Ma is designed to collaborate across disciplines, sectors, and geographies, wherever serious questions about human environments are being asked.

Collaboration Areas

Research & Academic Universities, research institutions, and labs working in environmental psychology, sensing technologies, and behavioral design.
Civic & Institutional Municipalities, public sector innovation teams, and cultural institutions building the next generation of public space.
Built Environment & Commercial Hospitality groups, healthcare developers, workplace innovators, and architecture firms shaping environments where people spend their lives.
Strategic Collaborators Designers, technologists, and specialists who bring complementary expertise to specific projects.

Current Stage

Where the lab is now.

Hinoki Ma is defining its first applied frameworks, strategic collaborations, and pilot opportunities across adaptive human environments.

01

Applied Methodology

Defining the lab's working principles and the questions worth pursuing.

02

Research framework

Building the disciplinary architecture, environmental psychology, sensing, materials, behavioral design, into an operational framework.

03

Strategic pilots

Open to early pilots: focused interventions that test the lab's hypotheses in real environments.

04

Institutional partners

Seeking institutional, civic, hospitality, and workplace partners to co-develop the first generation of work.

Our Vision

A future where environments do more than function.
They support restoration, regulation, and resilience.
They make human wellbeing possible.

HM-ENV-004
Version / Status
01.34 · Calibrated
Type
Human Wellbeing System
Inputs
Light
Sound
Air
Temperature
Movement
Cultural Context
Outputs
Comfort
Clarity
Focus
Recovery
Connection
Made in Observation Designed for Better States of Being

Get in Touch

Let's shape the next generation of human environments.

I read every message personally. Tell me what you're working on, or what you'd like Hinoki Ma to help you explore.

Write to Gabriela →

Or open a conversation with a topic in mind

Collaboration Pilot Advisory Research

Take part in the research

Living in Seoul? Your experience can help shape the Seoul Emotional Index. Whether you are Korean or international, a founder, artist, student, professional, parent, or newcomer, your story matters. Send a message to take part and I will share the questionnaire with you.

Take part in the research →

Your responses are confidential. Names are used only to organize the research and are never shared or published.

Shaped in Seoul.  ·  Replies within 48 hours.