Who said that factory buildings had to be drab, dingy halls devoid of beauty? Vitsœ, the UK-based maker of Dieter Rams-designed furniture systems, opened its new HQ and production building this week, and it's a real stunner.

Located in the small town of Royal Leamington Spa in central England, the new company building has been realized by an in-house Vitsœ team in close collaboration with Yacht designer Martin Francis, architects and fabricators specialized in engineered timber, landscape architects, engineers in their respective fields as well as industrial-sustainability academics.

Sustainability, adaptability, and workplace health were key motives in the design process for the 135-meter-long building that is naturally ventilated and naturally lit during daylight hours, offering employees big windows to connect with nature and the surrounding landscape.

Read on for more images and a project description we've received.

"Like the company’s renowned 606 Universal Shelving System, the building is an extension of Vitsœ’s system-thinking. Built as a kit of parts it can be refined and adapted in response to the changing needs of all it serves – company, people and environment – for many decades to come."

"Vitsœ’s new home is naturally ventilated and naturally lit during daylight hours via its north-facing saw-tooth roof-lights. Prevailing wind provides cross ventilation while the high ceiling height allows heat to rise for comfort in summer."

"Windows bring the outside in, connecting employees to the surrounding landscape, while passers-by may glimpse activities within. The kitchen and dining area face directly north offering a panoramic view of the silver birch trees in the adjacent urban community wood."

"The building, a universal building system: This will be a place of making and creativity that embraces offices, research and development, showroom, museum, software development, product assembly, kitchen and dining, overnight accommodation and more. Space within the building has been offered to Motionhouse, the leading dance-circus company based in Leamington since 1988, to create a collaborative and like-minded working community in a single volume. Motionhouse will join Vitsœ in its new home from January 2018."

"While 40’ containers of furniture are dispatched internationally during the day, lectures or concerts could take place in the evening before guests stay overnight and take breakfast the following morning. The building will be truly universal. Teams work together in a single large volume – 135m long x 25m wide x 6m high – to create an inclusive and collaborative working environment."

"The materials, introducing timber-framing on a grand scale: The timber building is the first in the UK with a structure made entirely of a newly developed beech laminate-veneer lumber (LVL). This high-performance engineered hardwood permits beams and columns to have smaller cross sections than softwood glulam, thereby offering greater elegance to the timber structure. [...] The building may be easily modified in the future as the structure, walls and roof are made of wood – a naturally adaptable material."

"The landscape, inspired by ridge-and-furrow: The landscape has been
designed by landscape architect Kim Wilkie to sit at one with the
building and reflect the undulating ridge-and-furrow fields of the
Midlands. Long grass will provide evaporative cooling to help keep the
building cool in the summer. The undulating form will attenuate the
adjacent road noise while absorbing rainwater."

Project Credits:

Building concept and design: Vitsœ and Martin Francis
Structural engineer: Eckersley O’Callaghan
Building environment and services engineer: Skelly & Couch
Delivery architect: Waugh Thistleton Architects
Landscape architects: Kim Wilkie and Wilder Associates
Industrial-sustainability consultancy: EPSRC Centre for Industrial Sustainability, University of Cambridge
Construction management: JCA Concept Construction

Gross internal floor area: 39,581 ft2 or 3,677 m2
Construction cost: £5.75m ($7.56m)
Construction cost per m2: £1,564 ($2,057)
Construction cost per ft2: £145 ($191)