The Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team has recently broken ground on a new headquarters in Northamptonshire, England. The project, which represents the first all-new F1 factory in the UK since the McLaren Technology Centre opened in 2004, is being designed by Ridge and Partners LLP.
The project will span 400,000 sf across multiple buildings, including a factory and a wind tunnel. The three-unit factory will be built just across the street from the Silverstone Grand Prix Circuit. One building will house the team’s design, manufacturing and marketing resource; a second building will be occupied by the new wind tunnel; and the third will redevelop and repurpose the existing factory premises as a central hub with staff amenities and a logistics center. The new headquarters will house every manufacturing resource within a single campus for the first time in Aston Martin’s history.
The new wind tunnel will use the latest steel-belt rolling-road system and a state-of-the-art flow-imaging section area. The site will incorporate the wind tunnel, model support, and production facilities. The commissioning of the wind tunnel is due to start in Q3 2023.
The project also claims to be the first “smart factory” in Formula One. It has been designed from the ground-up to be a wireless, adaptive, streamlined facility with all of its information streams, monitoring systems, and manufacturing processes tied together via data in the cloud. The technology will give the headquarters the ability to constantly adapt to the cyclical manufacturing processes of a Formula One team.
The new headquarters is slated for completion in late 2022 or early 2023.
Related Stories
| May 19, 2014
What can architects learn from nature’s 3.8 billion years of experience?
In a new report, HOK and Biomimicry 3.8 partnered to study how lessons from the temperate broadleaf forest biome, which houses many of the world’s largest population centers, can inform the design of the built environment.
| May 16, 2014
Toyo Ito leads petition to scrap Zaha Hadid's 2020 Olympic Stadium project
Ito and other Japanese architects cite excessive costs, massive size, and the project's potentially negative impact on surrounding public spaces as reasons for nixing Hadid's plan.
| May 13, 2014
First look: Nadel's $1.5 billion Dalian, China, Sports Center
In addition to five major sports venues, the Dalian Sports Center includes a 30-story, 440-room, 5-star Kempinski full-service hotel and conference center and a 40,500-square-meter athletes’ training facility and office building.
| May 13, 2014
19 industry groups team to promote resilient planning and building materials
The industry associations, with more than 700,000 members generating almost $1 trillion in GDP, have issued a joint statement on resilience, pushing design and building solutions for disaster mitigation.
| May 11, 2014
Final call for entries: 2014 Giants 300 survey
BD+C's 2014 Giants 300 survey forms are due Wednesday, May 21. Survey results will be published in our July 2014 issue. The annual Giants 300 Report ranks the top AEC firms in commercial construction, by revenue.
| May 8, 2014
Sporting events in style: Infographic showcases novel stadiums of the world
UK precast concrete maker Banagher, which specializes in precast stadia solutions, has assembled a list of the world's top stadiums in terms of architectural and structural design.
| May 1, 2014
Super BIM: 7 award-winning BIM/VDC-driven projects
Thom Mayne's Perot Museum of Nature and Science and Anaheim's new intermodal center are among the 2014 AIA TAP BIM Award winners.
| Apr 29, 2014
Best of Canada: 12 projects nab nation's top architectural prize [slideshow]
The conversion of a Mies van der Rohe-designed gas station and North Vancouver City Hall are among the recently completed projects to win the 2014 Governor General's Medal in Architecture.
| Apr 29, 2014
USGBC launches real-time green building data dashboard
The online data visualization resource highlights green building data for each state and Washington, D.C.
| Apr 11, 2014
ULI report documents business case for building healthy projects
Sustainable and wellness-related design strategies embody a strong return on investment, according to a report by the Urban Land Institute.