Blending Heritage and Innovation: The Waimarie Lincoln University Science Facility

The Waimarie Lincoln University Science Facility, designed by Warren and Mahoney with Lab-Works, won the 2024 WAF Higher Education and Research Award. Blending modern design with heritage, the facility features glass-walled labs and collaborative spaces, fostering education and research in land-based science. All images: Courtesy of Warren and Mahoney

The Waimarie Lincoln University Science Facility, designed by Warren and Mahoney in association with Lab-Works, has won the prestigious 2024 World Architecture Festival (WAF) Higher Education and Research Award. Located on the Lincoln University campus in Lincoln, Canterbury, New Zealand, the building serves as a hub for education and research in land-based science. It features a robust, two-story brick teaching structure inspired by the neighboring historic Jacobean-era Ivey Hall building, seamlessly blending modern design with architectural heritage. A highly technical, three-story research building adjoins the teaching facility, fostering collaboration through its connection to a north-facing courtyard shared with neighboring research partners. The facility emphasizes openness with glass-walled laboratories, transforming traditionally hidden spaces into engaging, visible areas for scientific exploration.

The design promotes collaboration and flexibility, with shared learning zones and informal spaces to encourage spontaneous interaction. Modular interiors allow for easy adaptation and lab conversions with minimal disruption. The facility’s environmental initiatives are extensive, including roof- and wall-mounted solar panels that generate energy equivalent to 110 average households, stormwater attenuation, artesian heating and cooling, and rainwater harvesting systems. Inspired by Lincoln's scientific soil coloration, the interior design fosters a connection to the surrounding rural environment. The project also integrates Māori cultural narratives through collaboration with local artists, enhancing its cultural and environmental significance while achieving embodied carbon measures that surpass RIBA's 2030 targets.

Lab Design News spoke to Joseph Hampton, principal with Warren and Mahoney, about the design strategies behind the award-winning Waimarie Lincoln University Science Facility, its modular adaptability for future lab conversions, and how it reflects a collaborative approach to sustainability and cultural identity​.

The Waimarie Science Facility features glass-walled laboratories designed for transparency, collaboration, and safety. This open design transforms labs into engaging, didactic spaces, fostering interaction and visually connecting research with teaching.

Q: How does the building’s modular design ensure adaptability for future lab conversions with minimal intervention?

A: The pace of science and technology makes change the constant in the modern laboratory. To achieve a sustainable, functional and commercially prudent outcome, the Waimarie Science Facility features a modular laboratory system designed for flexibility and longevity, enabling efficient reconfigurations as scientific needs evolve. Laboratories can be reconfigured without significant structural and benching interventions, reducing downtime, waste, and costs. In this sense, the project is designed from the inside-out, with a carefully considered lab joinery module that suits standardized equipment dimensions and safety regulations. Regular frames and a removable integrated mid-bench racking system can be added or removed to suit new wall configurations and working models, thus minimizing disruptions during upgrades. The module is supported by servicing strategies and defines the entire structural and architectural set out for the project. This long-life design approach ensures the facility remains relevant and efficient over decades of use.

Q: How was feedback collected from lab end users prior to embarking on this design project?

A: The design team, led by Warren and Mahoney together with our partners Lab-works, undertook a rigorous, user-centered design process involving intensive workshops with laboratory stakeholders. Key scientific leads were established to represent each group. Comprehensive room data sheets were used to facilitate consensus on functional requirements, and discussions about workflows and laboratory functions unearthed detailed insights. By comparing similarities and differences in user needs, the design team developed a solution tailored to specific operational demands. This inclusive approach ensured alignment between user expectations and the final design.

The Waimarie Science Facility's design utilized a user-centered process, engaging stakeholders through workshops to tailor the space to specific operational needs, aligning user expectations with the final design.

Q: What considerations went into designing the glass-walled laboratories to promote transparency and collaboration while maintaining safety and functionality?

A: One of the facility’s goals was to accelerate research and innovation by establishing an environment of collaboration and engagement. Waimarie breaks with tradition, transforming hidden rooms into glass walled spaces with science on display. The glass-walled laboratories were precisely designed to achieve transparency, foster collaboration, and maintain operational safety. Thoughtful details associated with cleanability, functionality, safety and acoustic performance were addressed through collaborative design. The resulting visibility enhances safety by enabling visual oversight while promoting an open, collaborative and engaging atmosphere. The transparent design also transforms laboratories into didactic spaces, visually connecting research and teaching while encouraging shared knowledge and interaction.

Q: The building achieves embodied carbon measures surpassing RIBA’s 2030 targets. What specific strategies or materials were crucial in achieving this milestone?

A: In response to Lincoln University’s commitment to change, the project team integrated advanced sustainability strategies from the earliest phases of the design. Including:

• A reductive and efficient design that seeks to remove unnecessary products and finishes. 

• A commitment to supporting a sustainable local economy by prioritizing locally sourced, low-carbon material selections.

• Low-carbon brick cladding that is quarried and made just down the road in the Selwyn District.

• Timber framed external envelope including 10 tons of locally grown Terra Lana sheep wool insulation.

• Modular design strategies that minimize construction waste.

• Fly ash cement substitutes, and an innovative seismic dampening system that reduced over 2,700 tons of concrete and steel from the project.

• Prioritization of natural timber finishes generally with trees felled from site, milled and reused in the interior.

• There were also operational carbon considerations. The facility catalyzed Lincoln University’s transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, bolstered by design inclusions such as solar facade and ground-source heating and cooling systems.

These strategies demonstrate that high-performance, low-carbon design is achievable within tight budgets.

The Waimarie Science Facility integrates stormwater attenuation basins, artesian heating and cooling, and rainwater harvesting to enhance sustainability, improve water quality, and support campus-wide environmental goals.

Q: How do the stormwater attenuation, artesian district heating/cooling systems, and rainwater harvesting contribute to the building’s overall water conservation goals?

A: Stormwater attenuation basins filter and treat water from the facility and surrounding campus, improving water quality before it reaches nearby Lake Te Waihora. Artesian district heating and cooling systems provide energy-efficient thermal regulation, while rainwater harvesting systems and low water-use fittings reduce reliance on municipal water supplies. Together, these features embody a holistic approach to water conservation, directly addressing local environmental challenges and campus-wide sustainability goals.

Q: What role did flexible teaching zones and informal learning spaces play in achieving best-practice pedagogy, and how have they impacted students and researchers since the facility opened?

A: The design integrates flexible teaching zones and informal learning spaces that align with modern pedagogical practices. Flat-floor classrooms enable dynamic, interactive teaching methods, while breakout spaces extend opportunities for collaborative learning. These vibrant, human-scale areas were developed through direct input from students to meet their preferences and needs.

The learning laboratories have transformed the way Lincoln’s academics teach—placing students at the center of the class, with technology that supports academics as roaming support.

Since opening, these spaces have enhanced campus engagement, with students staying longer and reporting improved educational experiences, fostering deeper collaboration between students and researchers.

The Waimarie Science Facility balances collaboration and focus with shared social spaces, quiet work clusters, and adaptable breakout areas. Thoughtful design enhances acoustics, daylight, and views of the agricultural landscape, fostering both connection and concentration.

Q: How did you approach the balance between creating collaborative spaces and maintaining areas for privacy and focused work?

A: While the exterior articulates the relationship between the laboratory and learning spaces, the ground floor is deliberately continuous. 

The project is home to Lincoln University’s workplace and laboratories for numerous departments and land-based research partnerships. We extracted social meeting and eating spaces from each siloed brief and connected them through an internal promenade—encouraging staff and students from different research groups to meet and connect.

Acoustics were vitally important. The design carefully arranges stairs, circulation and standalone meeting and office pods to divide the floor plate into team sized clusters of workstations. These clusters were arraigned around the perimeter and separated from high use spaces to create areas of calm, daylit workspace with beautiful views through the solar façade to the agricultural landscape beyond. Breakout areas and group study zones create informal, adaptable settings for collaboration, while dedicated workspaces maintain a focus-friendly environment for detailed research tasks.

Q: Can you discuss the collaboration with local Māori artists and how their narratives were incorporated into the design to reflect a shared cultural identity?

A: Engagement with Te Taumutu’s stakeholders continued throughout the design. Their narratives gave us a uniquely local approach to sustainable design for this project. Collaboration with mana whenua and local Ngāi Tahu artists created a meaningful link to the land and its history. This impacted all scales of the project from the site set out which honors lake Te Waihora, to spatial planning based on Manakitanga and the tikanga of use, to the finer details that embed Toi Māori throughout the project in meaningful ways to affect paving of cladding texture, affect light and shadow or support regulatory function. The façade, for example, overlays Māori and European stories as an expression of a shared history of agricultural innovation—connecting to the site’s environmental and historical significance and serves as a visual representation of the collaborative research conducted within.

Q: How do you plan to evaluate the long-term success of the Waimarie Lincoln University Science Facility in terms of its impact on research outcomes, user experience, and sustainability goals, and what metrics or feedback mechanisms will you use?

The Waimarie Science Facility undergoes ongoing post-occupancy evaluations, measuring user satisfaction, research productivity, and energy efficiency. Early feedback highlights transformational collaboration and a 92 percent projected reduction in carbon emissions, positioning Waimarie as a hub for impactful research and education.

A: Success will be assessed through ongoing post-occupancy evaluations, including 12- and 24-month reviews. These sessions will gather feedback from users and stakeholders, such as researchers and suppliers, to gauge satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Metrics include user satisfaction, research productivity, and flexibility in use. Energy usage stats are equally being tracked with particular focus on tracking the projected reduction in annual operational carbon emissions which are projected to be as high as 92 percent more carbon efficient when compared to the previous coal-based systems.

Evaluations to date are overwhelmingly positive. Transformational impact is being reported with high levels of internal and inter-organizational collaboration. Lincoln University's student population continues to accelerate, and Waimarie is emerging as an epicenter for students, and researchers looking to solve one of the biggest issues of our time.