Jaguar Land Rover Engine Manufacturing Centre

The client brief was to create an exemplar of modern sustainable manufacturing. The BREEAM Excellent Engine Manufacturing Centre is comprised of 165,000m2 of production space, offices, social support spaces and a community educational centre. Innovation, collaboration and the wellbeing of people at the facility have shaped the success of the building. A simple layout was derived from optimum operational adjacencies and designed for flexibility, providing both an efficient process flow for manufacturing and giving staff easy access to support facilities. Naturally-lit machine and assembly halls are flanked by supporting office and ancillary buildings. This approach optimised production performance and blurred the boundaries between production and offices through visual transparency, clear movement and social spaces, helping to break down the barriers of communication between staff. A powerful architectural impression was generated through the repeating discretely expressed façade modules, generated by the north lights. The skylights provide generously day-lit spaces throughout the complex and continuous strips of glass along the ground floor allow the buildings to float, further humanising the scale of the spaces while providing views out to the landscaped surroundings. 21,000 PV panels deliver up to 5.8MW of power, which is equivalent to 30% of the Engine Manufacturing Centre's energy requirements, reducing the plant's CO2 footprint by over 2,400 tonnes per year. With a firm date for starting production, programme was critical. The first phase of this world-class facility was handed over just 24 months after the design team appointment. Subsequent phases followed in continuous sequence from 2013 to 2017.