The thoughtful lab

Whether for biotech, medtech or greentech, to design science buildings is to understand scientists. How much time is spent in the lab and at the desk, how is data analysed, where do ideas come from, how often a research setup changes, where to wash flasks and lab coats, how they raise funds and how research groups and companies develop.

As workplaces, labs should be productive, inclusive and enjoyable. No two scientists are the same, and labs need to embrace this reality: to craft spaces for focusing, collaborating and relaxing. The right common spaces can go a long way to help ideas cross pollinate, whether planned or serendipitous. Ecosystems are important – say, proximity to a teaching hospital or university, to peers and potential partners.

A truly good science building has to be adaptable over time, from short term experiment changes to long term layout reconfigurations. Here, ‘long life, loose fit’ is not only a good sustainability mantra but also a research advantage. The carbon profile of science buildings means retrofit and low carbon design are ever more crucial, but some measures, like shorter spans, are also conducive to lower embodied carbon – there are reciprocal benefits to discover.

Beautifully rational, endlessly adaptable

We often take time to draw and redraw, searching for a simple sketch that explains the project. Often this sees us bringing in services and structural collaborators from the outset – the best designs are multidisciplinary. In base builds, we follow the mantra of ‘long life, loose fit’, finding the optimum grid and floor-to-floor height, and a beautifully rational core layout that solves services distribution at ease. In fit outs – where leases may be short and churns common – our goal is designs that are specific for a science, but generic for different organisations.

At the Sir Michael Uren Building at Imperial College London, architecture, servicing strategy and structure all work as one in this way (even when the site we inherited is triangular). But this approach allowed for twelve different layouts which are tailored to the needs of different research groups. From the Dementia Research Institute, which needs a simulated studio flat, to Musculoskeletal Medical Engineering needing Gait Analysis clinics and making facilities for prosthetic limbs to wet and tissue culture labs for Regenerative Medicine to more traditional office spaces for the statisticians and policymakers at the School of Public Health. The Henry Royce Institute brings advanced materials and clean rooms into the mix, providing a full research-to-manufacturing cycle of bespoke thin film devices.

Finding the sweet spot

The speculative lab is a peculiar species. These buildings are meant to attract a diverse cohort of tenants, from university spin offs to growing SMEs to multinationals. We are helping clients to find a sweet spot – the optimal base build specification and right degree of flexibility.

One place which is at the forefront of R&D is Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, a 280-hectare centre for science and technology in Oxfordshire. Set in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, it is one of Europe’s leading science and technology centres, providing a home to numerous organisations of national and international significance, mostly working within the health tech, space and energy technology sectors. The Zeus Building, our first realised project at Harwell, places flexibility and adaptability at the heart of its design. It can be easily modified to accommodate the needs of the businesses and people who will occupy it. Generous internal heights anticipate the accommodation of both (or either) tall, column free workspace as well as mezzanine floors.

Yet knowing the sciences is important and so is understanding each occupier’s needs at different stages in their maturity, from start up to grown up. Sometimes, the answer lies in having more than one building; while others, floor plates in a single building that can accommodate many different sizes of occupiers, tenures and communal support facilities. Yet they all share some key considerations: say, how to deliver cryogenics or provide for lab infrastructure.

Media to science

White City Place today is home to occupiers ranging from young biotech to expanding biopharma to global pharma. But in its previous life it was the headquarters for the BBC, including buildings which we originally designed. Generous, robust and adaptable, these buildings have been given a second life as lab-enabled buildings. Whilst their resilience tells a success story of adaptive reuse, the conversion of these office buildings to become an innovation cluster for life sciences has also allowed them to respond to the changing commercial market demands in post-Covid, especially in White City.

We are the lead designer of a multidisciplinary team, adapting these office buildings to accommodate CL2 laboratories with additional air handling plant, fume extract risers, laboratory drainage, storage and internal transportation of gases and cryogenic liquids. Our role has been ongoing since the buildings’ initial refurbishment, evolving alongside the changing life sciences market over the recent years.

Two labs – the Sir Michael Uren Hub and the Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute at King’s College London – are on tight urban campuses, addressing multiple edges, both providing opportunities to give science a presence in the city. So, great care has gone into the materiality, texture and detail of their facades; both provide a very functional role in reducing solar exposure, but both provide an aesthetic role giving science a distinctive image. Two very different settings with very tailored urban responses.

Science buildings enable discovery and translation – and there is an art in making them fulfilling places to be.