Lab Design Conference Speaker Profile: Andrew Labov
Andrew Labov, principal with CO Architects in Los Angeles, CA, will be speaking at the 2024 Lab Design Conference in Phoenix, AZ. Andrew and his colleague Jennifer Swedell will be speaking on “Building for Discovery: The Ongoing Evolution of the University of Arizona Biosciences Partnership Building” on May 21 at 9 a.m. MST. This presentation will offer a high-level understanding of design/build delivery in the context of laboratory buildings, and will review the pros and cons of using shell-space as a budgetary tool and strategy for deferring build-outs until users are known.
Lab Design recently spoke with Andrew about his career highlights, his green thumb, and what to expect from his Lab Design Conference presentation. Be sure to secure your spot at conference so you don’t miss this session! Register here.
Q: How did you get started in your career? Did you major in your field in college, get an internship, switch careers mid-stream, etc.?
A: I got my architecture degree at University of Southern California. However, I switched into architecture after my first year of study overseas in international law and relations. When I came home and showed my photos to my parents, they complained that all I shot were buildings (“where are the relatives?”), so maybe I should become an architect.
Q: What are some of your career highlights so far?
A: Within the industry, being elevated to the AIA College of Fellows, co-founding the Building Enclosure Council’s Los Angeles chapter, serving as CO Architects’ lead lab designer as the firm’s Science & Technology Director, and being the first recipient of the Autodesk Revit BIM Experience Award for integrating BIM into the design of the 736,000-square-foot Palomar Medical Center, the largest architectural application of Autodesk’s technology at the time. If I had to select one, it would be starting the lab planning discipline at CO Architects, realizing we could do this in-house and have the confidence as a firm to figure it out and to do it well. The CO projects I’m most proud of are the Biosciences Partnership Building at University of Arizona, Phoenix, and the William H. Foege Building for Bioengineering & Genome Sciences at University of Washington, Seattle.
Q: If you weren't in this profession, what job would you like to have instead?
A: Gardener.
Q: What is your favorite building, lab-related or not?
A: Kimbell Art Museum (1972) in Fort Worth, TX, by Louis I. Kahn. It unifies its architecture and function with the fewest and simplest number of moves. It’s a direct expression of merging form and function.
Q: What is the biggest work-related challenge you've faced? How did you overcome it?
A: What’s challenging in what we do is trying to translate the language of science into the language of architecture. It’s also what’s intriguing about it. It’s imperative to have everyone on the team motivated about the science and mission—and why each project is so singular and different from the last one.
We’re about to start a project for neuroscientists who will try to develop new ways of visualizing what’s happening inside the brain so they can read and translate brain signals to operate a device to help someone who has paralysis. It’s incredible research! We get to figure out how all that is expressed in the architecture.
Q: What's your typical order when you visit a coffee shop?
A: I’m thinking of the old definition of a coffee shop (a.k.a. diner): burger with grilled tomato and onions, apple pie, and black coffee.
Q: What is one important skill that all lab design experts should have?
A: Patience and curiosity, of course. And mostly, the ability to use Wikipedia secretly under the desk at a meeting to understand what brain surgeons and rocket scientists are talking about! Hahaha!
Q: What kinds of hobbies or interests do you have outside of work?
A: Gardening, employing native plants and a zero-water strategy once plants are established.
Q: What is the best piece of professional advice you have received?
A: This profession requires a tremendous amount of patience in order to gain perspective. Even though we all have constant deadlines, patience is important to know that the solution will come when it comes. One of my teachers, Panos Koulermos, said that if you force a solution, it will be evident to everybody. One of my former colleagues always said, “The right solution at the wrong time is still the wrong solution.”
Q: What are some of your future career goals?
A: I want to continue to build the deep bench of laboratory architecture expertise, so when it’s time for me to retire, CO Architects is in good shape to continue to do this work for years to come.
Q: For someone entering this career field, what advice would you give them?
A: Take advantage of every opportunity to fully explore and immerse yourself in the diversity of architecture before deciding whether you want to pursue one path over another. Don’t feel pressured to choose a specialty too early—or ever.
Q: What is your favorite vacation spot?
A: Being in nature in California, particularly the desert. It’s how I can get away from buildings. As an architect, I’ll always look at a building’s flaws and try to figure out how to correct them or how I would have approached it. Changing my perspective allows me to look at buildings as a spectator instead of a critic when I get back.
Q: What is a typical day at work like for you?
A: A really incredibly diverse range of activities and scales: anything from meeting with client to try to imagine what they’re going to need in 10 years, to working on small details with engineers, to teaching new architects how the profession works, to dealing with bills and contracts. Changing both physical and time scales on a minute-by-minute basis is an everyday occurrence. I’ll be figuring out some part of a building so that a piece of equipment won’t be replaced for 20 years and then directing something that has to be installed in the field next week.
Q: What’s a common misconception about your job?
A: Clients think that just because you make something look easy to do that actually it is easy to do. The general public thinks that all architects do is draw blueprints. For young architects and students, the misconception is that they are going to draw and design all the time, when actually, there are so many non-drawing aspects to the job that still require imagination and creativity, such as research, code interpretation, and quantitative analysis, all of which we have to do before we know what to draw.
Q: Why did you agree to participate in the Lab Design Conference?
A: To share my experience, particularly focusing on the importance of continuous improvement, learning and recognizing our missteps and assumptions, and figuring out how to deal with them.
Q: Can you please summarize your Lab Design Conference talk?
A: Focusing on the University of Arizona Biosciences Partnership Building, we’ll look at how the building evolved in time. Since exact scientific users were not known at the time of design, we adopted a strategy of generic lab infrastructure that would be upgraded later. After completion of the shell space, as users started to come in, laboratory fit-outs were done in phases by the same university PM, contractor, and design team. Each successive laboratory buildout incorporated lessons from the previous one to improve upon project delivery and the functionality of the research space. As well, the emergence of novel experiments or proof-of-concept studies has also factored into the alteration of build-out of shell space. As researchers pursue innovative directions, the building’s initial lab layout has morphed into other iterations to support these new endeavors.
In conjunction, we’ll host a tour of ASU’s recently completed Health Futures Center, a collaboration with Mayo Clinic that includes an innovative MedTech Accelerator program. This business-development incubator offers lab spaces to biotech, biomedical engineering, and medical devices companies. These tenants are able to leverage the Health Futures Center’s informatics research labs, nursing programs, and an innovative education zone.
Q: What are the key takeaways from your Lab Design Conference talk?
A:
High-level understanding of design/build delivery in the context of laboratory buildings
Pros and cons of using shell-space as a budgetary tool and strategy for deferring build-outs until users are known
Use of smart components and cost-loaded data in Revit BIM modeling
Communicating complex equipment requirements to owners, consultants, and contractors
Q: What is your favorite aspect of the Lab Design Conference?
A: Trying to learn about what’s really important to researchers and what they are interested in. I want to know how research is changing and how I need to adapt to it. I’m less interested in how the architect solved the problem, than the problem itself.
Q: Is there anything else that you would like to add or mention?
A: What’s changed the most in lab design—for better or worse—is an increased emphasis on translating basic science discoveries into the next level of technologies and products. The positive side is that trailblazing solutions come to market. A downside is that monetizing the research sometimes leads to less openness between research groups.