Fast-tracking Kentucky's Economic Vision
ECTC On-Site Training Center - Elizabethtown Community & Technical College
When Ford Motor Company agreed to build the BlueOval/SK battery manufacturing facility in Kentucky, it became a highly publicized venture. The negotiations included an on-site training facility to be completed in time for the opening of the manufacturing plant. This gave us a tight 18 months from conception to completion. It was a challenge, but one we were up for. And despite the ambitious timeline and complexities of working around the still-forming Ford/SKOn joint venture and state officials - including the governor - we designed a structure that proclaims the significance of this milestone that advances Kentucky into a new economy.
The ECTC On-Site Training Center prepares many of the 5,000+ skilled workers needed for the Blue Oval SK battery manufacturing facility. Our design team prioritized flexibility throughout the one-story structure to accommodate the evolving nature of the manufacturing process. In response to the programmatic floor plan of the training spaces, the building form is simple and linear — a pure east-west orientation — allowing for maximum northern daylight to fill classrooms, open offices, and the double-height high bay training spaces through a clerestory. Classrooms, offices, collaboration and study areas, restrooms, and an administration suite make up the support spaces of the facility, which focuses on creating the ideal classroom lecture-based environment paired with a flexible hands-on plant floor advanced manufacturing environment. Two main entrances break-up the expansive parking lot and create a link serving as the primary collaboration space within the building and separating the two large advanced manufacturing training spaces to allow for the future separate ECTC and BlueOval SK programs.
This training center stands out from the rest through its contemporary facade that showcases its importance and communicates that it isn’t another “plain box” manufacturing facility. Not to mention the therapeutic views of a soybean field for the workers in training. The two entrances break up the simple building form by carving space out of the southern high bay facade and breaking through the single-story northern facade as an elevated glass box. And while many of the exterior materials are common to large manufacturing facilities, we were thoughtful about the articulation, placement, and color of the blue corrugated panels to create a playful, human-scaled intervention that allows for highly visible branding connecting BlueOval and ECTC.
Despite the extensive project hurdles this project was completed ahead of schedule, earned a LEED Gold rating for its sustainable design and construction efforts, and serves as a great example to the power of community, innovation, and hard work.
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