Both projects are driven by the idea of counteracting the negative perception of factories. The proposal for Brompton’s new factory, designed by Hollaway Studio, will facilitate the production of 200,000 bikes a year by 2027 (compared to the company’s current 50,000). Project architect Rebecca Wise says: ‘The idea of this very sustainable forward-thinking company being housed in a crinkly tin shed on an industrial unit didn’t really suit. That doesn’t reflect what factories are now. They can actually be very clean and healthy places to work.’ Instead, a 100-acre site of unused wetland in rural Kent will be a home where the factory can integrate with nature, strategically poised between London and Europe. The first building (in a development of three phases) will sit 2.2 m above the wetland allowing it to flood periodically. It will make use of wind power and ground-source heat to offset its energy demands.

The factory is designed for the era of ‘new-collar’ work – a term coined by IBM’s former CEO Ginni Rometty in 2016 – which describes the valuable skills of factory workers who can manage robotic machinery and automated technology. Vestre’s new factory in Magnor, Norway (opening this year) ‘can be operated through a single iPad’ says CEO Jan Christian Vestre in a promotional video, thanks to ‘self-teaching robots … intelligent scanners that optimize the use of timber, fully autonomous forklifts, and IoT manufacturing platforms.’ Named The Plus and designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, the landmark factory will also have a close connection to nature. The cruciform development – with a central logistics hub and meeting place – is set in a forest and built using sustainable timber sourced from the surroundings. Vestre claims its new factory will have 50 per cent lower emissions than a conventional setup, will reuse 90 per cent of its water and run on its own renewable energy. Real-time statistics on its data use will be openly accessible online.

Visitors can cycle right through Brompton’s circular factory building via an integrated path that allows glimpses of production within. The facility, with a staff of 1,500 working at desks and on the factory floor, is designed to be shared as much as possible with the public, and between different types of employees. ‘The spaces are quite well connected physically and visually,’ says Wise. ‘We want people to come into contact with each other more and break down barriers between different departments.’ The promenade ends in a rooftop terrace and café with views out to the surrounding wetland. The idea of this generous shared space is to allow for encounters between staff and visitors ‘who might get a bit of an insight into the whole process.’

Similarly open, The Plus has terraced sides to its four wings for visitors to climb up and peer down onto the workings of the factory floor. In a video for Vestre, Ingels calls for not dividing up factories into front of house and back of house, but treating the whole as space to be seen, shared and enjoyed. ‘The front of house is all the nice places, that “deserve” architecture, the lobby, the headquarters, or where the management sits,’ explains Ingels. ‘The back of house is where all the real work happens. We actually believe the most exciting things happen when you combine those two things.’ Each functional zone has been given its own colour that includes the machinery, so what the visitor observes from above is like an ‘archipelago of colourful islands’, he describes. These rainbow stripes feature like a running track on the factory floor, helping to describe the flow of production to the visitor.