Jaguar Land Rover’s state-of-the-art advanced product creation centre designed by Bennetts Associates is now open. The project brings together design, engineering and production purchasing under one roof for the first time, in a new facility that is designed to encourage collaboration throughout the entire vehicle development process.

Located discretely in the rolling Warwickshire countryside, Gaydon has been home to automotive R&D for many decades since its origins as a WW2 airbase. The project brief was to consolidate operations for greater efficiency, help transform working practices, expand facilities, embed sustainability and wellbeing, and relocate Jaguar Design from its birthplace in Coventry to sit alongside its sister brand’s studio.

More than 50,000 m2 of built space accommodates the Jaguar Design Studio, offices, a site-wide restaurant, a 400-seat multipurpose hall, visitor building and other amenities. A new internal street connects these to existing buildings to foster community and a weave of connectivity maximises potential for serendipitous interaction to help drive creativity, innovation and synergies.

The new facilities are gathered under one of Europe’s largest timber roofs. As well as giving warmth, timber expresses sustainability and oversailing rooflights infuse the interior with natural light. A supporting steel ‘super-grid’ accommodates the wide range of spaces within an overall structural order and correlates with the triangular geometry of the original airbase runways, thus tying the future of the site in to its past. The materials of the ground plane link the landscape to the building’s naturally ventilated communal spaces, which flow out from beneath the soaring canopy.

The new built identity speaks subtly of Jaguar Land Rover’s values and products through quality of design, engineering and performance.  Positioning of this sustainable new facility at the heart of Jaguar Land Rover’s ‘Destination Zero’ mission also reflects the organisation’s leading role in transformative change of the automotive world.

The landscape design brings the beauty of the rural setting deep into the site to reinforce a distinctive sense of place.  A new lake dramatically transforms the arrival experience, as well as forming part of a sustainable drainage system. Within the site, space formerly occupied by car parking is now a lush green park serving the site-wide community with natural amenity away from the desk as part of the Jaguar Land Rover’s wellbeing agenda. An extended former runway alignment ties lake, entry, park and the site’s origins together.

Designed with Buro Happold (Engineering) and Grant Associates (Landscape), the project was delivered through novated Design & Build with Laing O’Rourke. Employing extensive Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) not only had benefits for quality, efficiency and safety, but also mirrored the nature of Jaguar Land Rover’s business.