Laboratory Design Emerges As An Architectural Subspecialty

Subspecialty AUTHOR: SCOTT HULER, P.18-19 Wander by the Richards Medical Research Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania, designed by architectural superstar Louis Kahn, and you may see aluminum foil taped to the windows. Applied to keep out the sun glare that makes working in some of the building's labs the scientific equivalent of driving through the Arizona desert, the foil is only the most visible sign of Richards' unusual reputation. The unique aesthetic design makes the Richards complex, consisting of four towers, "one of the most important buildings of this century," says Hamilton Ross, president of the Philadelphia architectural firm Geddes Brecher Qualls Cunningham. "But," he adds, the towers "didn't really satisfy their main objective. In many respects, they bombed out in terms of satisfying what constitutes a good lab." Benches too tall to sit at and too short to stand at; wall space so diminished by floor-to-ceiling windows that storage space was lacking; offices divided by partitions instead of walls, making privacy nonexistent--a long list of problems has made the building the object of harsh criticism. Fortunately for scientists, almost everything about laboratory design has changed in the 30 years since the Richards building opened in 1961. The researchers themselves now exert much more control over the type of lab they end up getting. Most significantly, an entire architectural design specialty dedicated to laboratories has developed, and the experiences of the early years have led to the development of specific lab design concepts. For a research team or institution considering building a new lab or renovating an old one, lab design consultants--architects or engineers who specialize in designing labs--are the place to start. "They will do the very front-end work," says Ross, "sit with the owner and determine exactly what the needs are." Such a consultant is Ulli Lindner, a principal architect with Earl Walls Associates of La Jolla, Calif. In the mid-1960s, Lindner worked with Louis Kahn on the design of the Salk Laboratories in La Jolla, which have been as celebrated as Penn's Richards towers have been criticized. The first thing a consultant will do, Lindner says, is "appraise the site. Are you out of space, or is the space you have sufficient and just not working?" If it's not, the consultant will have to determine why. If the researchers say, for example, " `I can't do state-of-the-art science here because . . . the hoods don't work, or the cabinets are too small, or the water supply is bad,' " says Lindner, his recommendation would be to re-equip the lab rather than build a new one (see story on page 23). "You certainly wouldn't throw away a building because the water supply has a problem." Dennis Henner, director of cell genetics at Genentech Inc. of South San Francisco, Calif., recently had to make the build-versus-renovate decision. "We've been talking about building a research building for about 10 years," he says. "Four years ago we got to the point of spending a lot of time talking to the different scientists and technicians, asking what was important." To help Genentech decide whether to renovate current space, rent new space, or build, the company hired a laboratory designer, who spent time tracking the firm's researchers, "finding out which rooms they [went] into," as well as interviewing staff members and scientists, Henner says. In addition, he recalls, Genentech staff members, in conjunction with the lab designer, "spent a lot of time touring [other] lab buildings, looking at pictures, trying to make sure we knew what we wanted. We toured both university and company facilities, saying, `Yeah, that's great,' or `No, that looks awful.' " As a result of this research, Henner says, the designer worked out a plan for the company's "labs and what kinds of supporting space needed to be nearby. He turned our vision into his program." "The program" is architecture-speak for everything about a building or renovation. For example, Genentech's program included the biotech firm's desire to have all research areas contiguous, not spread among several facilities, as they are now. Ultimately, the company decided to build a $75 million research center, scheduled for completion in mid-1992. Jim Erdmann, associate dean for administration and registrar at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, recalls going through a similar process in the early design stages of Jefferson's new Life Sciences Building, due to be completed this month. Jefferson had a "total research space inventory done by a lab consultant," Erdmann says. The consultant also talked with administrators and faculty about the college's goals and expected growth, and came up with an estimate of net square feet need-ed. "This put us into a ballpark, told us roughly the size of the building we needed, even gave us a rough cost frame," Erdmann says. That both Genentech and Jefferson chose to build rather than renovate is not unusual--in most cases, renovation costs as much as building, and there are hidden tribulations as well. "You don't know what you're going to run into," says Terry Klosky, director of construction for the Baltimore-based architecture and building firm Scotsman Buildings East. "Hidden or latent conditions that nobody knew about" when the project was planned and were not on a blueprint can require extra columns, vertical supports, and other structures that make a job much more complex. Additional issues include local laws. Lindner notes that if a renovation costs more than a certain amount of money (which varies from state to state), "you have to modify the whole building," coming up to code for handicapped access, exit systems, and fire systems. This can make even an uneventful renovation suddenly costly. The people whose opinions count most in this process are the managing scientists themselves. "If you don't talk to the right people, you may have upper management designing a lab for middle management," says Klosky. "And the guy moves in and from Day 1 he's saying, `I needed helium and a vacuum, and you've got water and oxygen, which I never need.' " On the other hand, a managing scientist can be expected to take into account the needs of the technicians and bottom-rung support help. "What's important is to satisfy the function they perform," says Ross. Otherwise, "you could talk to a thousand people and get a thousand opinions." Keeping the planning in science management hands also keeps the focus on the long-term. But, Lindner warns, "any time you try to project more than five years it's a real crapshoot." Erdmann agrees, citing studies showing "as much as 20 percent of research space will undergo renovation every year," as a result of grant changes, turnover, and advances in science. "That means over five years, everything can be expected to change." Anticipating future needs is, in Ross's opinion, a fundamental consideration. "If [the facility is] not adaptable for change, that's a real problem," he says. "Different kinds of research effort come up--you might have a program lasting six months," and if your shiny new lab can't accommodate the next program, it stops shining pretty quickly. Everyone interviewed for this article agrees on the most important qualification an architect must have to deliver the lab you want: experience. "More than anything that's the single criterion," says Ross. "You may have a brand-name architect who you read about in the magazines but has no credentials." Harry Ellenzweig, principal architect of Ellenzweig Associates Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., says simply, "You want a firm that has done these buildings before." For scientists working with architects, the ability to design for change is only one of four major points to consider, says Ross. The others are the technology involved in the lab's operation, health threats to researchers, and the importance of a humane environment. Change, says Lindner, "is of the utmost importance." Especially in academia, scientists move from place to place often, and if that point is forgotten, by the time a new lab is finished it may be custom-designed for someone who has moved to another state. To effectively anticipate change, Lindner goes on, "you program on a modular basis." The module, a basic lab design concept, is a "unit of space, which, no matter how you cut up in the future, you can always retain a proper ratio of working space to circulation space," explains Lindner. This way, no matter how modules are used, he says, "from Day 1 to 25 years later, if you stay on the module lines, you'll always find the correct amount of exhaust, of plumbing, an electrical panel." This brings up Ross's second point: The architect must have "an appreciation for technology--it's the major driving force in lab design. This has to be accommodated, and not merely plugged in. Often architects feel, `We'll let the engineers take care of that, let them shoehorn it in,' " but with systems as complex as those supporting a lab, "the technology needs to be appreciated, if not glorified." Ross's third consideration concerns health. It's important to keep in mind that lab researchers use chemicals that truly pose grave hazards to both scientists and the environment. "If an architect isn't sensitive to those issues, he isn't going to get off on the right foot." The fourth point is the most general--and, Ross adds, personal: "An architect needs to know how to design a humane working environment, to understand the importance of teamwork in research. How do you promote that in the design of a lab?" He brings up the concept of providing space for chance encounters. When his firm was interviewed by AT&T Bell Laboratories of Murray Hill, N.J., he says, "Boy, oh boy, did they talk this one up." Interactive spaces are necessary, and if not taken into account from the start, they don't work. Henner recalls seeing on his tours "many examples of space designed to be congregational space that wasn't used . . . It's obvious that even the experts get it wrong, sometimes." Office space, too, must be considered, especially in university settings, where this can be a charged issue, says Lindner. "[When] you put someone's office in a lab, that lab becomes his property. Then how do you change it? Offices do not belong in the lab. They belong close to the lab, but not in the lab." A similar issue with the opposite solution occurs in industry, where a scientist might want a room with common equipment to be connected to a lab, not only for convenience or control, says Henner, but also because "if it feels more like it's someone's office, it will inhibit people coming in and leaving a mess." Finding an architect who has all requisite engineering skills or can easily hire people who have them is also widely suggested. If the research team ends up being in charge of hiring a contractor, says Ross, "you never know how the two [architect and contractor] are going to work together--and in the case of conflict, the client could come out on the short end." Broader architectural issues should also be considered. Designing for campuses differs from designing for industry, for example, chiefly in the amount of money that commercial firms can afford to spend: "Universities are willing to sacrifice aesthetics for equipment," Klosky says, whereas in industry, administrators tend to spend whatever's necessary to get the lab and the image they want. When it's time to choose the architect, says Ellenzweig, "the important thing is to visit some of the buildings the architect has done before and talk to the clients. Get familiar with their process--does it fit your institution?" The architect, after all, will need to be working with your institution and getting necessary information. If your corporate styles don't mix, don't try it. Henner says that Genentech decided to hire the SRG Partnership of Portland, Ore., because Genentech scientists "felt that this was a group who would listen to our concerns, rather than saying, `This is how we build things,' and trying to fit us into it." In addition, says Erdmann, "Find out who are the people that are going to work on the project. It's very easy for a firm to bring in a top team and dazzle you," but, then, when your project is in the works, you may end up with "the luck of the draw." "Get a commitment that they will stay with you throughout the job," the Jefferson administrator suggests. And finally, though tradeoffs will have to be made throughout the design and building process, remember that the very beginning is the time to get all your needs, however tangential, expressed and at least considered. An architect who can't respond to all the questions brought up in the first meetings isn't likely to understand the situation much better a few months down the line. Labs can fail in as many ways as there are labs--wasted meeting space, poor juxtaposition of work and office space, insufficient systems. The central design and engineering issues, however, are the most important, and finding an architect who understands them is the bottom line. As Lindner says, "A distilled water system, that's something you can deal with. But the wrong exhaust and supplier system size, you could have the most beautiful building, and it's just not going to work. "You put your offices in the wrong space, you've just got the wrong space." Scott Huler is a freelance writer based in Philadelphia.

Laboratory Design Emerges As An Architectural Subspecialty

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