Rimac Campus in Sveta Nedelja: Merging Tech and Landscape

The Rimac Campus in Sveta Nedelja unfolds as a thoughtfully orchestrated environment where high-tech production and everyday life blend into one continuous experience. Designed by Croatian firm 3LHD, this project brings together Rimac Technology’s business, R&D and manufacturing under a single, barrier-free roof, all while weaving in public pathways, green spaces and even a racetrack. Below, we explore how the architects translated a complex program into an elegant choreography of forms and functions.

Crafting an Identity: 3LHD’s Vision

From the outset, 3LHD set out to dissolve the conventional divide between “front” and “back” of a factory. Their triangular site layout—anchored by the existing Erdödy Castle, a glazed office pavilion and a vast production hall—creates three equally weighted “points” in space. By eschewing right angles and traditional façades, the architects forged a continuous metal envelope over the production volume and a softly curving glass skin around the offices. The result is a non-hierarchical campus that invites exploration from every perspective.

A Fluid Architectural Gesture

At the heart of the design lies a one-kilometer stretch of profiled aluminum cladding. Lightweight and flexible, the aluminum panels curve around corners without seams, dematerializing the building’s mass and reflecting the changing light. Above the transition between office and factory, a planted green roof spills outward like a folded landscape, concealing restaurants, a kindergarten and breakout lounges. This seamless blending of architecture and terrain reinforces the campus’s open, barrier-free ethos.

The ‘Showroom Factory’ in Action

Rather than hide machinery behind solid walls, the production facility functions as a “showroom factory”. Six-meter-high “houses within a house” accommodate distinct manufacturing stages, each framed by glazed viewing galleries. Visitors can witness component assembly, testing and final vehicle delivery in sequence—turning a tour into a layered storytelling experience. Meanwhile, mezzanine offices and atriums bathe workspaces in daylight, forging visual ties between engineers, managers and the assembly line below.

Navigating Spaces and Landscape

Movement here is deliberately choreographed. Goods follow efficient, street-sized corridors, while visitors meander along gently sloped ramps through landscaped plazas, past a lake, sheep-grazed meadow and eventually onto a secret racetrack. On special occasions, the internal loop becomes an actual circuit, echoing Formula 1 heritage. Sunlight studies shaped window-to-wall ratios, and a soaring cantilevered eave provides shelter without severing sightlines to the surrounding greenery and historic castle.