Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn showed off its new world headquarters on Sunday, making the move from its iconic Glass House along Michigan Avenue to the original Henry and Edsel Ford Research and Engineering Center along Oakwood Boulevard, now known as the Henry Ford II World Center campus. // Photo by R.J. King
Ford Motor Co. in Dearborn showed off its new world headquarters on Sunday, making the move from its iconic Glass House along Michigan Avenue to the original Henry and Edsel Ford Research and Engineering Center along Oakwood Boulevard, now known as the Henry Ford II World Center campus.
Set across Oakwood Blvd. from The Henry Ford — Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, Greenfield Village, Benson Ford Research Library, and more — the automaker’s new Ford World Headquarters joins a large R&D campus first established in 1953.
The repurposed campus, which will soon connect 14,000 employees within a 15-minute walk, brings the automaker to the forefront of major R&D centers globally, including GM’s Technical Center in Warren, Stellantis’ North American headquarters in Auburn Hills, Silicon Valley, and more.
“This campus reflects our enduring belief in American innovation and American leadership,” says Bill Ford, executive chair of Ford. “Though Ford is a global company, it is — and will always be — an American company at its heart. … If you come looking for our home, you will still find us at 1 American Road. (20901 Oakwood Blvd.)”
The grand opening of the new World Headquarters is the culmination of more than a decade of work to redefine Ford’s workspaces, as well as employee experiences. It replaces the Ford Product Development Center.
The new four-story, 2.1-million-square-foot headquarters, shaped by three overlapping hexagons, will accommodate 4,000 employees when it’s completed in 2027, twice that of the Glass House.
The new facility, dubbed the “Hub,” brings Ford’s key decision-makers and designers under one roof, creating new efficiencies in the product development process. Six design studios, three interconnected showrooms, and various team Energy Rooms allow for enhanced team discussion and collaboration.
The new headquarters, built by Barton Malow in Southfield, is just the latest in a global overhaul of Ford factories and workspaces. By the end of 2027, more than 90 percent of Ford’s office employees will be working in new or newly renovated spaces.
The highlights of the world headquarters include:
- Any Ford employee can access collaboration space at the new building, which brings cross-functional teams together through three main types of spaces: Workplace, Amenities, and Unique Programming (Design Studios, Showroom, Fabrication Shops, and Garages) to support different working styles
- The building enables the free movement of products, as it can accommodate a vehicle almost anywhere
- Vertically stacked layout reduces material movement time by more than 80 percent compared to the previous Product Development Center, a result of a two-year study leading to the final design of the building.
- Workspaces are available throughout the building for employees, regardless of their assigned office, enabling collaboration across the Dearborn campus
- The new Ford World Headquarters is more than twice the size of the Glass House and supports twice the number of employees
Building features and amenities include:
- Six Design Studios allow for confidential reviews in indoor and outdoor space
- Design Showroom enables Ford to conduct a full product review in one unified space for the first time, featuring 10 turntables and state-of-the-art lighting, a zero-degree pitched floor extending out to the courtyard review space, and a 64-foot micro-LED screen for comparing digital, full-size vehicles
- Large event spaces for hundreds of employees with state-of-the-art technology to accommodate needs in-house
- 160,000 square foot food hall — Gallery Hall —is accessible to all Ford employees
- Wellness rooms, kitchenettes, mothers’ rooms
- 303 tech-enabled meeting rooms to collaborate seamlessly with global teams
- More than 100,000 square feet of interior courtyard space, accessible by all employees throughout the workday
- 26 vehicle turntables throughout for product display and review
- 12 acres of greenspace creates a walkable environment between facilities on the Dearborn Campus, more than doubling the tree canopy
A courtyard connected to The Gallery, which offers seven food stations or restaurants ranging from Asian to Mediterranean, markets, and coffee bars, has two tent-like, open air structures that are meant to evoke the Vagabonds.
Between 1915 and 1924, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and John Burroughs, calling themselves the Four Vagabonds, embarked on a series of summer camping trips. The idea was initiated in 1914 when Ford and Burroughs visited Edison in Florida and toured the Everglades.
Upon arrival, distinct public and employee lobbies are front doors to the brand for those visiting and those arriving to work each day. The public entrance along Oakwood features color swatches of Ford models, from the iconic Model T to the Mustang Mach-E, adorning the main wall.
The ceiling incorporates red cedar soffits, which can also be seen on the building’s exterior, perforated with white metal paneling that can also be found in the railings. In addition, there are wrapped, micro-LED screens for curated programming, while terrazzo flooring — one of the many sturdy materials selected for their longevity throughout the building — helps retain an aesthetic continuity.
Parts and pieces of a Bronco Raptor, sourced from a disassembled vehicle fresh off the line at the Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, adorn the wall in the American Road lobby, greeting employees as they enter. The specially designed brick is consistent with the brick on the building’s exterior.
Both lobbies also feature large multifunction spaces, while the employee lobby can act as an event space in its own right, capable of accommodating as many as 700 people.
The main showroom, part of a comprehensive trio of review spaces, features 10 floor turntables and “hidden” side walls that open to reveal the Colors and Materials Showroom and Digital Showroom, which includes another rotating platform and a 64-foot, micro-LED wall.
These three adjoining spaces allow Ford leaders to conduct comprehensive product reviews. The showroom is filled with natural light year-round thanks to the adjacent courtyard and a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows, plus custom indoor lighting. A center oculus light fixture is designed to mimic any kind of natural light, during any time of day, anywhere in the world.
The showroom connects to the Savannah Courtyard, which has another three turntables for outdoor product reviews. The Courtyard features a mezzanine above, shared by designers in Studios 1 and 2, and is wrapped in a neutral glazed terra-cotta rain screen.
Each of the six new design studios, split between the second and fourth floors, has an identical layout, size, and new technology and equipment for functions such as clay modeling and milling, while flexible workstations allow for collaborative work.
Each room aligns with the customer profiles — Build, Thrill, and Adventure — announced with the company’s new global brand strategy. The fabrication milling shop on the building’s first floor, known as Design Prototyping, is equipped with metal, wood, trim, and paint shops.
This is where models are constructed and undergo rough milling, a design process used to shape models, before reaching the final clay modeling phase. Special freight elevators are available so employees can easily move models between design studios.
The unique glass banding the building’s exterior windows includes the patent numbers of historic innovations throughout Ford’s history. The bands appear in a swoop pattern comprised of tiny ovals, which includes the embedded patent numbers.
This nod to company history also serves a functional purpose in helping obscure sensitive products and information, as well as helping to regulate heating and cooling.
The new headquarters was designed with 22-inch-thick concrete floors to support the movement of vehicles throughout the facility.
As for the future of the Glass House, once Ford completes the move out of the building in the first half of 2026, it will be sustainably decommissioned and ultimately demolished over the course of roughly 18 months so that the site can be repurposed.
The automaker will continue to own the property, and will work with the City of Dearborn and community leaders on how the site can best serve its employees and neighbors.
