Are we delivering future life science white elephants?

The major refurbishment cycle of commercial office buildings appears to be shortening with each period of design and construction. From the 40-50-year life cycle of a 1960s concrete frame, 1990s structures are predicted a life cycle of 20-30 years, which shortens further for those built in the 2000s. With each refurbishment comes an increase in the amount of embodied carbon expended over the building’s life, so it should be our aim to lengthen the time between major refurbishments.

In the life sciences sector, I’m concerned that highly specified bespoke laboratory and research buildings could continue this trend rather than reverse it.

In a fast-moving industry where systems and processes are continually developing, there is a real risk this generation of buildings could be rapidly outdated with more invasive works needed to make them attractive to a wider market.

Our experience adapting 19th century warehouses and 1980s institutional buildings shows that buildings with surplus structural load capacity or generous floor-to-floor heights make readily adaptable buildings. That raises the question about whether the typical design requirements for life sciences buildings – with higher imposed loads, dynamically stiff floors and large service zones – would be better to adapt in the future.

However, in a climate emergency I don’t believe we can justify overspecifying new buildings. Moves are already under way by regulatory bodies such as the FDA and EPA in the US in considering new methods and modelling technologies to developing life sciences buildings. We’re seeing a shift into cost-effective computer models and AI to simulate biological processes which makes it hard to predict how building uses will change over time.

It is understandable that speculative developments want to accommodate use iterations so as not to restrict potential tenants. With an estimated 85% of the sector made up of start-ups and SMEs whose needs will change as their operation grows with successful funding, flexibility is essential.

My experience in adapting existing buildings and specifying structural solutions for science and research has informed the following actions to ensure that life science buildings delivered today can have viable second and third lives:

                    
                Actions for future-proofing life science buildings:            
        
                        1                    
                    
                        Challenging the brief: one of my first clients said “great developers listen to their agents but still do what they think is best”. Start-up firms, fresh out of high-spec university laboratories, may want what they’re used to, but we advocate challenging the brief and pushing back where tenants don’t necessarily need all the bells and whistles from the outset. High floor loads, low vibrations, high water and power demands and floor-to-floor heights generally don’t need to be built in.                    
                
                        2                    
                    
                        The benefits of cluster development: an advantage of developing clusters of life sciences buildings is the opportunity for clients to collaborate and share high-spec areas across the site. This could be bespoke buildings that have high load and dynamic performance utilised during the experiment phase or set areas suitable in each building (basement and lower levels) that would suit high performance and could be subleased across the cluster.                    
                
                        3                    
                    
                        Pinpointing load: when it comes to structural capacity, all buildings will naturally have areas which can accommodate greater loads or will provide better dynamic performance without assigning the whole floorplate. This capacity can be mapped and overlayed with the space plan to align uses best accommodated by the inherent capacity of the building.                    
                
                        4                    
                    
                        Targeted strengthening: there are plenty of opportunities to introduce elements that enhance the floorplate performance to suit the lab space plan, such as ties to connect floors and use their inherent mass to damp vibrations. These can be located at the end of lab benches or within internal partitions at relatively low cost and easily removed in the future.                    
                
                        5                    
                    
                        Task-specific approach: given that most research buildings have a 60:40 mix of lab space to write-up areas, it seems irresponsible to apply a high use specification across the whole site. By setting the write-up requirement at the project outset, meaning 40% of space is for general office and collaboration use, different construction methods can allow low-carbon elements such as timber to be introduced. Natural materials and generous collaboration areas would also support talent attraction, retention and user wellbeing within a sector with informed employees and a skilled candidate shortage.

At HTS, we’ve adopted these strategies on recent projects for Oxford Properties, Native Land and Aviva Investors. This has had a significant impact on the embodied carbon while delivering best-in-class buildings, and we continue to innovate in facilitating science and research in new and existing buildings.

This article was originally published in Estates Gazette #2406, 10 February 2024.

Written by

James Morgan

Director

Are we delivering future life science white elephants?

In a fast-moving industry where systems and processes are continually developing, there is a real risk this generation of buildings could be rapidly outdated with more invasive works needed to make them attractive to a wider market.

Actions for future-proofing life science buildings:

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