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Designing research spaces is uniquely challenging. It’s a delicate dance between ensuring functionality, implementing innovative design, minimizing energy consumption and staying within budget. These needs have changed dramatically in recent years due to advances in technologies such as robotics, automation, advanced cultivation, and artificial intelligence, which enable computational models to complement laboratory research. In addition, changing demographics and growing concerns about environmental, social and governance policies have brought health, energy conservation and decarbonization into the spotlight.
In the past, laboratories selected construction companies based on their experience governing safety and regulatory requirements, and companies relied on scientific user groups to provide technical input on functional requirements during the design and construction process. However, today’s clients require construction partners who can deliver complex services, understand their needs and realize their vision.
To meet today’s design challenges, architecture firms need to offer a robust suite of services and hire teams with relevant, diverse experience. This article highlights some of the characteristics of the most successful scientific facility design firms in the architecture and engineering industry. Laboratory managers can consider these attributes when looking for their own laboratory design partner.
Laboratory design and planning experience
The needs of a scientific facility complex are best fulfilled by a company with a dedicated laboratory design team and in-house sustainability experts who have extensive experience in the unique requirements of laboratories. These companies improve service quality by improving laboratory performance.
To meet today’s design challenges, architecture firms need to offer a robust suite of services and hire teams with relevant, diverse experience.
Ideally, construction companies integrate in-house laboratory planners who specialize in a variety of facility types, including physical and material sciences, biological sciences, animal and plant facilities, physical or GMP manufacturing cleanrooms, and high-containment facilities that handle risk groups3 and 4 pathogens. On a project, lab planners work with the architecture team, collaborating with the project architect to deliver the architecture scope of work. Because lab spaces overlap with non-scientific spaces, working with a project architect is critical to avoid oversight and create synergy between spaces.
Additionally, research facilities need to be more sustainable than ever, but they face unique obstacles in that traditional energy conservation methods may not be enough as they often compete with laboratory equipment and process energy needs. Common approaches, such as adopting energy-efficient facades, only go so far. In this case, architects and planners need to work with sustainability experts to consider how laboratory planning and design strategies can improve energy efficiency without adversely affecting operations and experience. For example, flexible planning solutions can help extend the life of a building, and risk-based zoning can reduce the operational energy required to run a laboratory safely.
The project team has a strong culture of collaboration between laboratory planners, architects and sustainability experts to create spaces that meet a variety of end-user needs while minimizing harmful impacts on the environment.
Complex Functional Approach to Health
Clients are increasingly viewing laboratory buildings more fully as workplaces than just to meet regulatory and safety requirements. The growing concern for employee health and physiology can be seen in the increased use of natural light in laboratories and the use of ergonomic and adaptable laboratory furniture.
Renovated laboratories in the R. Joe Dennis Learning Center at Bellevue University feature transparency that transforms the student and faculty experience by injecting daylight, creating views into the lab and promoting interaction.
Image source: HDR Architecture, Inc. © 2016 Dan Schwalm/HDR
For example, the Ploughright Building at the UK’s National Center for Virology uses an open, light-filled atrium and glass-enclosed cafeteria within a Category 4 containment (BSL-4) facility to bring in daylight and create a vibrant environment. At the P&G Beauty Innovation Center in Mason, Ohio, long sight lines from inside the lab to the outside increase safety and allow for natural light within the lab space.
The Roslin Institute building at the University of Edinburgh uses natural ventilation to improve the quality of the internal environment and significantly reduce the building’s energy consumption and carbon footprint. Laboratories and offices are designed with separate physical barriers and mechanical systems to enable natural ventilation of the offices. Operable windows in the offices and naturally lit atriums act as ventilation shafts, creating a stack effect that together keep air moving and provide ventilation and cooling on warm days.
Creative solutions that promote collaboration
Emerging trends in science also emphasize interdisciplinary collaboration between traditionally siled disciplines. Social spaces have become an important part of the modern laboratory as they foster collaboration while providing employees with morale-boosting amenities. Often, social or health spaces are under-allocated during planning because they are not eligible for grants and can only be funded by the institutions themselves. A well-rounded company can find creative ways to make room for these areas without sacrificing any functionality of the building. Exploiting the shrinking threshold between science and circulation spaces can help communities thrive and foster collaboration.
For example, at the University of Colorado’s Joint Institute for Astrophysics, a six-foot-wide staircase in the center of the building features skylights that create light wells and beacons within the building. A perimeter circulation around the staircase houses tables for collaborative and individual work. In addition, 21-foot-wide whiteboards line the hallways, encouraging residents to write down ideas and discuss them on the spot.
At the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the Fred and Pamela Buffett Cancer Center of Nebraska Medicine, “knowledge transfer areas” are placed at the intersection between the hospital and research areas. These areas combine formal and informal functions to facilitate collaboration between researchers and clinicians. Also includes avenues for innovation and creative thinking. Traditional landmark areas such as conference rooms feature SMART Board technology, while informal floor-to-ceiling spaces promote quiet introspection among colleagues.
Excellent communication and collaboration skills
In addition to design expertise, companies need a collaborative, communicative culture to best support clients. The design process is iterative in nature, requiring companies to have a flexible and proven set of tools to communicate between users and the design team. This is especially important in the current work environment, where collaboration can occur both in person and online. Communication and dialogue, knowledge sharing and idea generation permeate the company’s culture and make them better partners throughout the design process.
The importance of collaboration and communication is magnified when dealing with large amounts of complex data and information, as is the case when designing scientific buildings. Therefore, it is crucial that companies have experience using proven collaboration tools.
The Plowright Building at the UK National Center for Virology has an open, light-filled atrium and glass-enclosed cafeteria and is located within a Category 4 isolation facility.
Image source: HDR Architecture, Inc. © 2014 James Brittain
Companies should also have a proven track record of working with a variety of stakeholders to demonstrate the effectiveness of their communications infrastructure. One way to address complex scientific planning challenges and increase user engagement is to conduct design workshops with stakeholders using sticky notes, markers, or online platforms such as Miro or Mural. By leveraging multiple cloud-based applications such as dRofus, Bluebeam Studio and Asana, the design team can collaborate with internal and external teams on tasks such as room spreadsheets, design reviews, project management, and collecting user-purchased equipment data. and customer user groups.
Robust data analysis and investigation
Decision-making becomes easier when you have data to back it up. Even if such data is available, it cannot be used to inform decision-making if it is not properly communicated to relevant parties. Some successful companies use their own proprietary data tools to visualize data. This is supported by an in-house data analytics and research team that helps create computational data models to assist client decision-making.
In an environment where user purchases are increasingly driven by empirical data rather than anecdotes, the importance of data analytics cannot be understated. In the absence of a sufficient data set, user surveys can supplement available data points in decision-making.
Depending on the size and complexity of the project, companies may use a mix of cloud-based tools. User survey methods may vary, including regular email responses, conference polls, or customized and curated questions supported by cloud-based applications. This approach allows survey participants to provide flexible answers.
The continuing evolution of research facility design
Laboratory managers should aim to work with architectural and planning professionals who have the qualifications detailed in this article. It is also important to recognize that, like research methods, best practices in research facility design are constantly evolving. Success depends on working with architects and planners who are able to seamlessly incorporate a nuanced understanding of advances in research, building science, technology and sustainability into every project they undertake.
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