Ford Engineering Lab Turns 100

The building that started Ford Motor Company’s innovation journey now houses an electrified engineering team.

December 1, 2024

Kami Buchholz

The Ford Engineering Lab, featuring a limestone exterior facade, was designed by Detroit architect Albert Kahn with considerable input from Henry Ford. Image shows a portion of the building’s first floor. (Ford)

“This might be our most forward-looking team occupying the building that was the impetus for our future-looking focus in the very beginning,” Jennifer Kolstad, Ford Motor Company’s Global Design and Brand Director, told SAE Media inside the 100-year-old Ford Engineering Lab’s library.

The 1928 Ford Model A was designed at the Ford Engineering Lab. (Ford)

The two-story Dearborn, Michigan building, which spans two city blocks, is now the renovated and modernized workspace for Electrified Propulsion Engineering Team innovators. “They’re in-space before the research and development hub opens across the street,” Kolstad said.

Before the Ford Engineering Lab was constructed, the site was a factory for Ford tractors. Ford developed the first mass-produced, lightweight tractor under the Fordson nameplate. (Kami Buchholz)

That two-million-square-foot (186,000 sq m) research and engineering center is slated to wrap construction in 2027, with the first phase – a showroom and studios – slated for completion in early 2026, Kolstad said. “We’re currently decentralized with skilled teams scattered across our Dearborn campus. When finished, product development will be under one roof,” Kolstad said about the new, four-story research and engineering center.

Jennifer Kolstad’s role at Ford includes overseeing physical spaces. (Buchholz)

Historical milestones underpin the character and charm of the revamped Ford Engineering Lab’s 221,000 sq ft (21,000 sq m) of workspace. A first-floor hallway leads to Henry Ford’s last remaining office — replete with a majestic marble fireplace, towering grandfather clock, and an immense work desk. Adjacent to the Ford Motor Company’s founder’s office is his son’s (Edsel Ford’s) office. “A lot of important decisions have been made here,” senior collections archivist Ciera Casteel said during a September 18 press tour of the building.

A second-floor hallway provides an entryway to a walk-in vault. With 8-in (203-mm) thick walls and a steel inner lining, the vault was typically stuffed with business records and substantial cash to pay employee salaries and bonuses as well as cover regular business expenses.

At the engineering lab’s 1924 opening, the building featured one of the largest open office spaces anywhere. That spacious environment inspired the design and development of many vehicles, including the 1928 Model A and the 1949 Ford, which sold more than one million units in its first production year.

Decommissioned in 2007, the engineering lab was later revitalized in a multi-year renovation project that resurrected features amid modernizations to lighting (including restoring the original skylights), electrical, plumbing, air quality, and other aspects. “Ninety percent of our global facilities – excluding manufacturing – will be renovated by 2027,” said Kolstad.