Volvo Cars Manufacturing Plant

Volvo Cars, the Swedish auto manufacturer, awarded planning and design of its first North American headquarters office and manufacturing facility to the design-build team of Yates Construction and Albert Kahn Associates (Yates-Kahn). The 2.3-million-square-foot campus of six major buildings sits on 1,600 acres in Ridgeville, South Carolina, and was originally built to produce 100,000 Volvo S60 sedans annually for worldwide distribution, with capacity for up to 150,000 vehicles per year across its production lines.

Facility Components

The facility includes a Body Assembly and Robotic Welding Shop, a Finish Operations Shop, a Utility Building, a Fluids Building, and guardhouses, all designed with responsible, sustainable practices as a high priority. The facility achieved LEED Gold certification.

Kahn's Role

Kahn's extensive experience designing highly technical, heavily regulated, environmentally sensitive, and complex conditions for major automotive clients made Kahn the logical choice to lead the design portion of this flagship facility. As Volvo's master architect, Kahn also provided the architectural design of the paint shop, along with mechanical and electrical design for the paint shop utilities and wastewater building.

Design Approach

The high-tech, functional aesthetic draws from a "form follows function" design philosophy, using a collaborative workplace model to promote quality, productivity, and the elimination of waste. "Lean" master planning, programming, design, and construction were employed in a collaborative design-build approach to bring the production process online in an unusually short timeframe.