Five Time-Tested Lab Strategies

By: Mark Jensen and Brent Amos, principals at Cooper Carry

Kailos Lab

Credit: HudsonAlpha Institute

Despite overall economic instability, the life sciences industry - and the real estate necessary to house it - continues to perform. According to Cushman & Wakefield’s October 2022 Life Sciences Update, in the U.S. there are approximately 19.9 million square feet of near-term deliveries scheduled for 2022 and 2023, or 74 percent of the current construction pipeline. For projects due to be completed in 2022, 60 percent of the space is already pre-leased. Even against economic instability, the sector is well-positioned. 

In this wave of new construction, we at Cooper Carry are experiencing an uptick in demand for lab design projects. Interestingly enough, we often find ourselves referencing a project from 15 years ago, HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology (HAIB) in Huntsville, Alabama. HAIB opened in 2008 and was ahead of its time. The facility houses an independent genomic sciences institute focused on developing and applying scientific advances to health, agriculture, learning, and commercialization. As an innovative multi-tenant lab facility with approximately 75% of the building's assignable spaces being flexible laboratories, HAIB set a new standard for multi-tenant facilities that attract life science tenants and inspire collaboration among them. And, it provides valuable learnings that are still relevant today. 
Through HAIB, we’ve uncovered five time-tested lab strategies that still rein true. Those learnings include:

Sharing economy: Nonprofit and for-profit enterprises are co-located within HAIB’s 270,000-square-foot facility, which allows for sharing of resources including machinery and other lab equipment, minimizing expenses to start-up biotechnical companies. We carefully designed both shared and private spaces throughout HAIB, allowing the building’s occupants to share ideas, without compromising intellectual property. The building is at its best when it helps brilliant scientists produce research that fuels entrepreneurship.

Lab Overview

Credit: HudsonAlpha Institute

Flexibility: HAIB was created to be highly flexible and adaptable. This flexibility has allowed companies to grow and expand, which is imperative in the ever-changing life sciences industry.

Peggy Sammon, CEO of GeneCapture, a tenant of HudsonAlpha Institute, said:

“Since 2010, we’ve been able to grow our staff from two to 13 and have increased our lab space by over 50 percent, all while staying within HudsonAlpha Institute. The lab spaces are built with abundant natural light and high-quality materials and offer great views of the research park, creating a more conducive environment that fosters creativity among our scientists, which also improves our ability to recruit and retain top talent. Being part of a campus environment is critical for our growing company, as we have the flexibility to expand our operations, minimize costs and collaborate with other like-minded businesses.”

Collaborative common areas: HAIB was designed to create community and promote interaction, achieved by co-locating leadership and research teams in the atrium spaces and connecting people in a way that most buildings do not. This welcoming environment helps to spark impromptu conversations that lead to brainstorms and breakthroughs.  

Lab Panorama

Credit: HudsonAlpha Institute

Sustainable design: HAIB features enthalpy wheels (heat recovery), occupancy sensors tied to lighting, natural daylighting, and high-efficiency water controls that reduce energy and water consumption. With the climate crisis front-of-mind for many scientists, life sciences tenants value working in spaces that help make the world a healthier place. 

Natural materials that contrast the sterile feel of labs: HAIB boasts natural materials such as stone, mass timber, and water, as well as generous natural light and views of beautifully landscaped gardens. Putting people in science-based roles in settings with biophilic design and natural materials sparks creativity and innovation.

Fifteen years later, we have implemented many of these strategies into our ground-up developments and lab renovation projects. For example, Cooper Carry recently worked with the University of Virginia (UVA) School of Medicine to transform the 50+-year-old Pinn Hall into a flexible multidisciplinary research environment. The renovations aimed to create a laboratory environment to attract top-tier principal investigators and support student participation in funded research for the departments of cell biology and pharmacology. 

Myers Lab

Credit: HudsonAlpha Institute

Prior to the renovation, researchers each had their own lab and equipment. Echoing the sentiment of HAIB, we designed and planned the new laboratories with the idea of shared space and equipment in mind. This has reduced redundancies and freed up space to facilitate interdepartmental collaboration at multiple scales. Spaces for collaboration and display have been placed at strategic locations that leverage opportunities for interactions across the institution. Transparency, collaborative audiovisual technologies, high-quality lighting, and carefully engineered acoustics draw people together. We introduced biophilic elements such as organic shapes and wood materials to connect the interior spaces with the natural environment and expanded the size of the windows to increase natural daylight and reduce energy consumption.    

There are several revolutionary projects that reflect HAIB at its core, and HAIB itself is still making news today. Just recently, scientist Jeremy Schmutz, who has been with HAIB since it opened in 2008, reflected on the progression of genomic sequencing technology over the last 20+ years for an article on Wired.com. Illumina had just announced a machine that can crack genomes twice as fast as its current version at a lesser price. This tech is at the core of what HAIB does. With the flexibility of HAIB’s physical spaces, there is room for growth as technological advancements and breakthroughs in the life sciences industry occur. 

The HudsonAlpha Institute of Technology was ahead of its time in 2008. In a world of cold, sterile laboratory environments, HAIB emerged as a fresh take for the life sciences industry. With flexibility and collaboration at its core, HAIB changed the perspective on how to efficiently design lab spaces that not only produce incredible, life-saving results but is a comfortable environment for scientists to do what they do best.

Lab Shelves

Credit: HudsonAlpha Institute