Entering the capacious entry leading into the new Jaguar Design and Engineering Centre in Gaydon, Warwickshire, UK, one’s gaze is immediately drawn upward and outward ? past the stationary parallels of scale models and full-size vehicles on each side, and toward a distant backdrop of light and space framing the perpetual motion of its occupants. It becomes all too easy to imagine this kinetic state-of-the-art creative space belonging to a tech venture rather than operating for one of the most vaunted brands in automotive history in the English countryside. And that’s all before setting foot within the heart of the 39,000-square-foot Jaguar Design Studio, where clay models are judiciously contoured into reality and virtual reality systems are used to test their limits. Jaguar Design Director, Julian Thomson, standing in the Heart Space of Jaguar’s Design Studio. The muted cool light of the British countryside welcomed in is aided by extensive streams of LEDs overhead, offering the Jaguar team exacting control for assessing shape, contours, and proportion.

The new creative headquarters, designed in collaboration with architects at Bennetts Associates, represents a long term investment and integration of emerging technologies for the British automaker. It also operates as a cognizant effort of reinvention. The heritage brand is fully aware of the fundamental shift in the tectonics of an industry once characterized by iteration rather than innovation, with J...