Lab Designs to Combat Temporary Infrastructure
After the pandemic, the need for office and retail spaces declined, and with an evolving tapestry of exterminating factors from AI to global pandemics the need for space in the research sector may follow a similar trajectory.
The architecture firm, NBBJ, considered these factors in their designs and is developing the Regenerative Lab.
The lab will feature a modular cube system to allow the lab to convert into residential or office space, carbon reductive operable windows, cross-laminated timber framework, and more.
Lab Design spoke to Jay Siebenmorgen, an architect and design partner at NBBJ about the Regenerative Lab.
Q: Could you please introduce yourself?
A: I’m Jay Siebenmorgen, an architect and Design Partner at NBBJ. Over the past 25 years, I’ve worked on a wide range of educational, healthcare, corporate, and science projects with clients like Moderna and Massachusetts General Hospital. I’m also a professor of architecture and have taught at Harvard, Columbia, Kansas State, and Northeastern.
Q: Why are retail and office spaces dying? Would these factors impact the vitality of labs?
Image Credit: NBBJ
A: Office and retail spaces are certainly facing major challenges currently, and while it’s easy to pin the blame on the pandemic, what COVID really did was accelerate an existing trend. Namely, online technology has enabled people to work, shop, and socialize from anywhere. Science has been insulated thus far from this trend as scientific research typically requires people to be in the lab, but the increasingly computational nature of research will absolutely impact how people use labs.
Q: How would AI and other technological changes impact the research sector and physical space?
A: AI, robotics, and other technologies compel us to rethink basic questions about what type of work will happen where. As iterative research becomes increasingly computational, it can be done from anywhere—freeing up more and more traditional lab space. The remaining space can become a building block for something greater—spaces that transcend traditional lab requirements to support collaborative discovery, creativity, and human experience.
Q: What is a Regenerative Lab, and how would it be designed?
A: The Regenerative Lab is a design concept for a people-focused, sustainable research building that can evolve over time. It builds on our fundamental needs for nature, daylight, and social connection to attract and retain talent with spaces like expansive atriums. It uses low-carbon materials like cross-laminated timber (CLT) and electrification to build more sustainably, and its modular design, with a hybrid steel-CLT structure, can evolve with changing research needs and even transform into residential use if the market changes. The Lab is a springboard concept—a provocation intended to explore these ideas rather than a design meant to be built as is.
Q: What is a modular cube system and how will it allow for the conversion of Regenerative Lab spaces to take on residential or office spaces when the need for the lab is over? What are the design considerations for a modular cube system?
Image Credit: NBBJ
A: The module takes advantage of the fact that the basic dimensions of a lab, including its floor-to-floor heights and grid, work well as residential units—if the space is designed to leverage that inherent flexibility. Labs’ taller ceilings work well as residential lofts, for example.
One key consideration is that while labs can have a narrow floorplan, more often they are fairly deep. This can pose issues for residential conversions because the interior spaces may not receive much daylight. But in a residential space, these areas could be used for things like resident storage, or light wells could be created to bring in natural light.
Q: What are some of the sustainability considerations when designing a Regenerative Lab?
A: Typically, labs are treated as standalone facilities with challenges that include intensive energy profiles, chemical usage, and associated mitigation issues. By contrast, The Regenerative Lab is designed to be part of an ecosystem with synergistic system design. It has a cross-laminated timber (CLT) and steel structural system that significantly reduces embodied carbon. It also uses a range of passive energy strategies such as operable windows for dry labs and write-up spaces, which are relatively rare in US labs, and a passive shading screen incorporated into its high-energy-performance façade system And, in order to adhere to new carbon emissions requirements, the building has a goal of operating with 100% electric energy.
Q: What is a cross-laminated timber superstructure? How will it shape a Regenerative Lab? How will these types of labs account for evolving technological developments?
A: The Regenerative Lab is designed to be flexible over time, to change with new technologies, or even shift to new uses if technological advancements reduce the demand for lab space. The steel superstructure is inherently durable, while the design’s CLT slabs can be more easily adapted than concrete—for example, they can be cut to create new stairwells. The modular façade system also has the ability to be reconfigured—sections could be pushed in to create residential balconies, for example.
Image Credit: NBBJ
Q: How can we prevent cities like Boston and Cambridge from dissipating once the surge of one-time-use research and clinical spaces is over?
A: Cities are endlessly inventive, and many of the most appealing neighborhoods in places like Boston have gone through periods of decline and reinvention. They often owe their character to the existence of repurposed buildings like warehouses—flexible structures with high ceilings that often work well as residential units. But traditional labs aren’t easy to change or repurpose, which may be a challenge for lab-dominant neighborhoods with AI and other emerging technologies poised to change the nature of lab work. Concepts like The Regenerative Lab are part of the answer—by creating spaces that can evolve and even provide housing when needed, cities can help build the type of resilience needed to avoid long declines.
Video Credit: NBBJ
