The “Glass House” has been an iconic building in Dearborn and indeed Detroit pretty much since it was opened in 1956.
So called because of its 12-storey rectangular glass façade, the Ford world headquarters building symbolized the work and white-collar ethos of that era, with executives in individual offices and top management physically separated, sometimes by miles, from the automaker’s product design and engineering departments.
A replica was its Canadian HQ in Oakville, Ont.
That era is now coming to an end as Ford incrementally moves its Glass House staff to its new World Headquarters building, also in Dearborn, in a sprawling complex in part inspired by Apple’s new HQ in Cupertino, Calif.
Some 2,500 staff began moving this summer and the full complement will be in the building, a mile away, by 2027. The automaker will then embark on a “sustainable demolition” of the old building over the next couple of years. The land could be turned into a park or an athletic site in co-operation with the City of Dearborn, whose identity has long been intertwined with Ford.
The new HQ, parts of which is still to be completed, will be 2.1 million square feet compared to the Glass House’s 950,000 square feet. And while the entirety of the Glass House staff will move there, employees from other divisions, in particular product development, will also transfer, totaling about 4,000.
The new four-storey building also has plenty of glass but also concrete, steel and natural stone and wood. Its envelope is both straight edged and contoured. It was designed by Norwegian firm Snøhetta, with Southfield, Mich. Barton Malow as contractor; groundbreaking was in late 2020.
Once done it will have the same name as the old: Henry Ford II World Center, and the same address, 1 American Road. It remains to be seen if it will earn a moniker like the old building. But the 122-year-old company is placing an emphasis on the interior, not the exterior.
The whole point, according to the company, is to bring “cross-functional teams together to collaborate in practice and proximity.”
This contemporary collaborative approach is designed to improve efficiency and inspire innovation.
Gone will be the individual offices of old – in fact there will be no personalized spaces – replaced with group areas, design studios and fabrication shops. Specifically, there will be more than 300 “tech-enabled” meeting rooms, a design showroom featuring 10 turntables for full product reviews, and large event spaces accommodating hundreds.
Critically, a “vertically stacked” layout slashes materials movement time by 80 per cent.
“Amenities” include a 160,000 square foot food hall, wellness rooms, kitchenettes and mothers’ rooms. The entire design was informed by the international WELL Building Standard, which promotes a healthy work environment for employees who spend most time indoors.
Just as important is that the building will become part of a campus with other Ford facilities enabling 14,000 staff to be within a 15-minute walk of each other, all within 12 acres of park land. To an outsider the campus is immediately across the street from The Henry Ford, one of the world’s most visited technological museums.
“For nearly 70 years, the iconic Glass House served as the nerve center of our global operations and we honor its incredible legacy,” Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford and President Jim Farley told employees in a letter. “But the future of our industry demands a different kind of space – one that is more connected, more flexible, and built for the speed of a technology – and software-driven company.”
The new design may offer benefits besides the obvious, such as recruitment and morale.
“It helps with retention and hiring the people you want but it also helps focus on the mission – you’re here to support these folks,” Arthur Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University in Buffalo, said. “So, engineering needs to be near the design folks, the people who are doing sales, so they understand the full picture.”
Moreover, by having amenities like several restaurants it promotes collaboration even during downtime.
“You can stay here, and you can have work meetings here and you can talk about it and go right back to your office,” he said.
Based on Japanese concepts, Wheaton said co-operation is key, isolation is not.
“If you had an office view for a manager that was seen as a demotion,” he said.
But, said Marick Masters, a professor of business at Detroit’s Wayne State University, all the “collaborative space” in the world won’t be successful unless there is employee sign-on and motivation.
“You can put people in an office space and if they don’t feel comfortable working together, if they don’t have the interpersonal skills to work together and if they don’t have the management superstructure that really encourages them to take risks and collaborate on projects then I don’t think it will make any difference.”
Another point, he said, is workforce integration.
“I think you have to be careful in terms of the type of people that you hire, and how you deal with your legacy work force integrating the new work force into that.”
