Work includes new sports hall and café

Wilkinson Eyre has unveiled its £250m research facility at the Wiltshire headquarters of technology company Dyson best known for vacuum cleaners and hand dryers.

The work has meant James Dyson’s firm has been able to expand the Dyson Campus, on the edge of Malmesbury, where it employs over 2,000 people, with a new research and development facility called D9.

As well as the R&D building, the scheme includes a new café and sports complex to provide leisure amenities for Dyson employees.

The architect said D9 has been conceived as a minimal, reflective glass pavilion within a rural landscape setting with a central atrium bringing daylight into the two floors and breakout spaces.

The Campus now provides 129 advanced research laboratories to develop new products at Dyson which, in its latest accounts, saw turnover hit £1.75bn in 2015 with earnings at £448m. In March, the company said it planned to spend £5m a week on R&D this year.