With Kia Seeing high profit margins in the US, its no wonder they are serious enough about the exploding car culture here in Southern California to build a new 21.7-acre corporate campus in Irvine, California. The $130-million megaplex includes the Kia Motors America Corporate Headquarters and state-of-the-art Kia Design Center America (KDCA). This is no ordinary campus though, this is a fully functional green facility that fosters less of an environmental impact on the earth and also inspires creativity at the same time. The 100,700-square-foot design center was developed in association with the Kia Motor’s U.S. design team who’s goal was to develop a campus that was pleasing to the eye and a layout that fostered creativity. Kia is the first company to install a bioswale system in all parking lots to ensure that surface water was reclaimed and not allowed to flow in creeks and streams. The landscaping around the facility is all drought resistant floras. Reclaimed water is used for irrigation and bathrooms. The glass windows in the building meet the California Energy Commission’s requirements for energy efficiency standards. I think this is a great start of a forward thinking company. Kia has definitely done its homework here by thinking about the future in terms of facilities and the cars that will be built here.
Tom Kearns, Kia Motors U.S. chief designer, had this to say,
By establishing the first Kia-exclusive U.S. design center in Irvine, we can take advantage of the tremendous design talent and inspiration provided by the Southern California car culture in a functional environment set up to maximize our designers’ abilities and creativity.” What a great concept and well thought out idea. It will be interesting to see just how much energy is saved at this plant once the statistics come in. I will be sure to keep my eye on this place and see just how much less of an impact it leaves on the environment.
Via: MotorTrend
