The official ground-breaking ceremony for global technology company Arm’s new headquarters building at Peterhouse Technology Park in Cambridge has taken place and included experiential demonstrations of the future of site by Scott Brownrigg.

Mike Muller, chief technology officer and co-founder of Arm, was joined by representatives from Scott Brownrigg, who have been responsible for the design of the new global headquarters facility in Fulbourn.

Chairman Jonathan Hill, Director Ed Hayden, leading on building design and Andi Theokle, Associate at Scott Brownrigg Interior Design who is heading up the building’s fit-out, attended the event, where the company’s new Digital Technology Unit showcased virtual reality models of the expansion project. Attendees were encouraged to fully engage with the design journey and experience the new buildings first hand within a compelling virtual environment.

The expansion project will enable Arm to increase its capacity in Cambridge to 3,000 people, with the construction of two new buildings totalling GEA 20,670 square metres (222,500 square feet).

Targeting a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ sustainability rating, the buildings have been designed to read_’ as four separate elements. Both buildings will feature a perforated, aluminium cladding system (perforated, anodised aluminium vertical fins) around the first floor level and a double glazed curtain wall system on the setback second floor level.

The building form and cladding reference the underlying technology of integrated circuits, inspired by the crystal lattice structure of silicon. The building emulates this concept with three levels of crystalline blades. As each blade is revolved one can see Kikuchi bands composed of a pattern that imitates the atomic structure of silicon forming a pattern across the body of the blade. This design is crucial in reducing energy consumption with the façade using these blades as a passive design feature appropriate to the orientation of each elevation.

The development creates a high quality distinctive contemporary facility that integrates with the existing park, while complementing and enhancing the built forms of the new office accommodation and car park structures being built on the site.

The landscape includes a series of interrelated elements centred around the linear access spine and the north-south links between the buildings to the rural hinterland on the edge of Cambridge.