Roasted Chickens and Design Secrets

DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford engine is swapping its 1950s “Glass House” headquarters for a new, modern industrial facility to promote collaboration and better accommodate thousands of employees who have returned to offices in recent years after remote work.

The new 2.1 million square foot facility in Dearborn, Michigan, will be ceremoniously dedicated on Sunday, although construction is expected to continue through 2027.

It replaces a 12-story, rectangular-shaped headquarters about three miles away in the city that is expected to be demolished. The new building marks Ford's sixth headquarters since its founding in 1903.

Currently dubbed “The Hub,” the new headquarters will consolidate thousands of employees and several previous locations under one, albeit very large, roof. Eventually, it is expected to house up to 4,000 executives and employees involved in daily business operations, product design and development.

Operationally, the new headquarters is roughly evenly divided between design and industrial operations. The design includes huge studios with hidden patios and a large showroom. The other half will be used for general business operations, such as executive offices and common work and meeting areas.

According to the company, there are very few real offices outside of those of senior executives. The idea is that employees can work however they want in different areas or “neighborhoods,” depending on what they are working on that day, officials said. Participation in domains, where employees try to make a space their permanent workplace, will be discouraged, said Jennifer Kolstad, global director of design and brand for Ford Land, the automaker's property management group.

“It's not just a building. This is a space that is a tool for our employees to be more productive, more collaborative and really help implement the Ford+ plan,” said Jim Dobleske, president and CEO of Ford Land, during a tour of the building.

The Ford+ plan was introduced by CEO Jim Farley as a recovery and efficiency plan for the automaker in 2021.

At the end of last year, Ford employed approximately 30,500 white-collar salaried workers in the United States. The company continues to own or use other properties throughout the United States, including large bases in and around Dearborn.

Many salaried employees are expected to be in offices at least four days a week, starting earlier this year, after many of them were put on a more flexible hybrid office-home schedule after the end of the pandemic.

“We're inviting them back into a space that is a tool to help them do their best work. And that best work tends to come from collaboration with other teams,” Dobleske said.

It is expected that part of that collaboration will occur in food.

The new headquarters includes a 160,000-square-foot dining area with eight “kitchen concepts” that will include rotating menus as well as take-home options like $6 pizza and whole rotisserie chickens, decadent desserts and a juice bar complete with an herb garden.

“We have guests from all over the world, so we wanted to make sure we designed our menus to pay tribute to that diversity,” said Grant Vella, executive chef at the new venue. “We wanted to do something different, push the boundaries of business dining.”

Outside of the kitchens and dining rooms, greenery and outdoor spaces are intended to create a more walkable campus compared to the automaker's previous facilities, largely closed off with streets and parking lots.

“This headquarters is the cornerstone of our campus redevelopment, but we've done a tremendous amount of work across the campus to really connect it and make it much more walkable for our employees,” Dobleske said, pointing to several facilities and areas, including a testing track and an 18-acre “Horsepower Park,” that surrounds the building.

Inside the building are six courtyards, including a two-level one in the center of the company's new design studios to allow designers to take products outside to view them outdoors in natural light. Those designer courtyards are exclusive areas that can only be seen by the surrounding private studios.

Most of the four-story building features natural light from exterior glass walls, as well as skylights and other windowed areas.

In addition to making a more walkable outdoor campus, Ford wants employees to use specifically designed stairs instead of elevators and escalators that are the primary means of transportation at its newest 12-story headquarters.

Craig Dykers, a founding partner of Norwegian architecture firm Snøhetta who worked on the building, said each staircase in the building, especially in its 14 different arrival areas, is prominent and intended to be attractive to use.

“Obviously, people don't naturally want to climb a ladder, so you have to design it very carefully so that people feel good about using it,” he said. “Part of the trick is that as you get on one flight, you don't necessarily see the next one, so it's kind of a journey.”

The stairs inside the building's main lobby are extremely wide with low-rise seating areas next to the stairs. There is also a cafe on a large landing above the main lobby.

The cafe overlooks a white piece of art featuring vehicle parts, one of many notable works of art Ford has purchased or curated for the new facility. Others are photographs or drawings of vehicles, while some are simply non-automotive artistic pieces.

Within the company's design operations are large studios with advanced clay milling machines, a spacious showroom that will serve as a modern design dome, and a 64-foot screen that displays virtual reviews and try-ons.

What employees won't see much of is the company logo, the familiar blue oval surrounding the name “Ford.” There will be a huge blue oval Ford logo on the outside of the building, but not on the inside. Unless you look closely.

On some exterior glass walls, such as the company's design operations, there is a glass pattern that features ovals accompanied by hidden numbers representing Ford patents.

Ford declined to discuss the capital spent to build its new headquarters and design center, which was part of a previously announced $1 billion campus transformation that began under former CEO Jim Hackett, who previously led furniture company Steelcase.

Here's a look inside the new world headquarters: