Contemporary Lab Design: A Primer

Managing rapid industry growth with prefabricated infrastructure

Shifting many aspects of building activity away from traditional construction sites, modular construction offers industries across the board an opportunity to make a steep change. Modular construction takes place in factories with an off-site, manufacturing-style production. Empowered by technological improvements, economic demands and changing mindsets, it is attracting unprecedented interest and a new wave of investment.

Science by architectural design: the modular modern

The Amistad Street Building of Yale University, which opened in 2007, exemplifies the new philosophy at work while also highlighting the problems faced by Yale medical school. The Amistad building features gathering spots as a key element, with lounges in the middle of the floors, where researchers can gather.¹⁹ Similarly, Yale’s Anlyan Center is split into two wings—three stories for teaching and six stories for research—connected by walkways and with a shared lobby. The 450-foot-long corridors end in hybrid kitchenette-cafeteria-lounge spaces that operate, in part, as mini-lecture halls.

Photo credit: Smithgroup

Water cooler collegiality

In the Anlyan Center, the promotion of multidisciplinary collaboration continues further still, with corridors and stairway landings posing as meeting spaces, planned or impromptu. In addition, X-ray readers feature outside the anatomy teaching lab to promote discussions. To ensure the open majority concept, which allows for flexibility, offices feature as bookends between labs, as their integration

The diversity dividend: a key to bolster innovation

Diversity matters in all realms of life, including life science research. A representative workforce can maximize the talent pool and draw out the full range of insights on any key research question. Complex, global research challenges increasingly demand the formation of teams with diverse skills and perspectives who can work across disciplinary, geographical and organizational divides.²⁰

While group diversity can provide innovative insight, diverse teams often face challenges to collaboration and communication. Some of these are ideological, arising due to differing cultural norms around power, gender, individualism and collectivism. However, physical spaces pose other barriers to effective interaction.

The Tianqiao & Chrissy Chen Neuroscience Research Building, completed in October 2020, embodies an effective laboratory design for collaborative research purposes.²¹ The building incorporates the nature of neuroscience into its design, developing a layout plan that evokes a physiological response from the visual cues and design choices of the facility, which subsequently support innovative research and collaboration between investigators working in the lab.

At the core of the design, dismantling physical research silos was integral to encouraging mingling and thought sharing between researchers who would not ordinarily interact. The central component or nucleus of the building was designed to serve as a central hub for collaboration—another creative and informal space, symbolizing the power of collaboration and visually connecting multidisciplinary researchers.

At the coalescence of efficiency, effectiveness, and user satisfaction

Modern research labs are designed to simultaneously balance functional needs and safety concerns (efficiency) with ergonomics, indoor air quality, thermal/visual/acoustical comfort, flexibility (effectiveness), and the provision of shared social spaces (user satisfaction).

Exemplifying the balance between the trifecta of innovation is MIT’s Koch Biology Building.²² Open communicating stairs ascend through a six-story building that, in collaboration with glass-walled “tea rooms,” form the intellectual nucleus of the lab space. Researchers can view one another across stories and comfortably interact with colleagues mid-flight by making use of conveniently located benches and handrails with footrests.

The likelihood of collaborative encounters is seeded by the absence of elevators, forcing building occupants to use stairs. In addition to functioning as eating areas, open common spaces encourage researchers to discuss their work, progress, and challenges with colleagues without having to leave the building. The MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences Complex are equipped with a multi-level lobby that links the entrance to the ground level with the upper part of the building's atrium. This generous volume of open central space is contrasted with the compact nature of laboratory spaces, which increases researchers’ user satisfaction, as it has an uplifting effect.

Incorporating serendipity in creativity: the power of physical spaces and break activities

In the era of automation and artificial intelligence (AI), creativity has become a critical differentiator in productivity. To enhance the performance of the workplace, innovators in the field of science-informed design have been leveraging insights from psychology and neuroscience to create environments that foster creativity.

While grand architectural statements and serene environments have long been associated with inspiration, research suggests that everyday events and routine activities can also trigger creative insight. However, the understanding of how these serendipitous moments can be turned into a reliable source of innovation remains limited.

Current studies indicate that the key to unlocking creativity lies at the intersection of both internally and externally directed attention. By fostering this cooperation between different brain networks, organizations can facilitate spontaneous thoughts that lead to creative insights.

Therefore, it is critical to envisage design that creates a curated experience, one that provides opportunities for both external stimulation and internal mind-wandering. Dynamic design that considers the temporal experience of the built environment can play a key role in inspiring and enhancing creativity in the workplace.

Creative institutions understand the importance of serendipitous exposure to new ideas in driving innovation. As such, they invest in engineering physical spaces that encourage informal interactions and cross-pollination of ideas. Examples include MIT's Building 20, Bell Labs' Infinite Corridor, Janelia Farm Research Campus, Pixar's Emeryville campus, and Las Vegas's Downtown Project. Additionally, taking breaks to participate in social activities, such as sharing food in shared spaces, can further enhance the chances of cross-functional interactions and spur creative thinking.

The engineering of physical spaces can foster serendipitous exposure to new ideas. This intervention has the potential to neutralize idea fixation, thereby promoting productive creative thinking.

When it comes to the future workplace, architects shouldn’t be thinking about stationary design but dynamic surroundings that drive divergent thinking.

¹⁹ Yale School of medicine. Science by design. Available from https://medicine.yale.edu/news/yale-medicine-magazine/article/science-by-design. Last accessed January 2023.
²⁰ Specht A, Crowston K. Interdisciplinary collaboration from diverse science teams can produce significant outcomes. PLoS One. 2022;17(11):e0278043. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0278043.
²¹ Lab Manger. Innovative lab design for collaborative researchers. Available from: https://www.labmanager.com/lab-design-and-furnishings/innovative-lab-design-for-collaborative-researchers-28518. Last accessed: January 2023.
²² Goldstein RN. Architectural design and the collaborative research environment. Cell. 2006;127(2):243–6. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2006.10.007.