The Toro Company, New Headquarters and Product Development Center

To accommodate a larger product line after an acquisition, The Toro Company expanded its research and development facility to create flexible assembly space to meet the future demands on the organization – all under a fast-track timeline. Central to the project was the configuration of the various components assuring functional efficiency, establishing long-term flexibility and minimizing operational interruptions throughout the various construction phases.

A full space program and master plan was developed, optimum adjacencies were graphed, trends in new product labs identified, and a range of solutions were explored; some simple, others more invasive. This plan led to the development of a new office building and corporate conference center which relocated employees out of the product development lab to allow for the subsequent expansion of product development and testing spaces to help streamline their processes. Hands-on workspaces included: AG lab, instrumentation, additive manufacturing, industrial design, electrical lab/shop, technical training room/shop, residential lawn care shop, package engineering, media studios, and media editing.

‘Toro Park’ is both a testing ground and a demonstration landscape. Shed/galleries are deployed to feature products and directly place them in the park. Connections are designed via large movable window-wall sections in the galleries to allow machines/people to move between environments.

The final program elements not only expanded their product development and testing capacities to help further enhance their processes and innovation, solving problems that haven’t been solved before, but strengthened and enhanced cross-disciplinary environments, changing the way research, data analysis, and engineering was researched, taught, and implemented. In addition to new community/user spaces for large gatherings and meeting/training labs, adaptability was also critical to improving learning, teaching, and development research.