When the Francis Crick Institute opens this summer, in London, it will be the quintessence of the future direction of science and technology facilities.
TOP 40 SCIENCE + TECHNOLOGY ARCHITECTURE FIRMS
Rank, Firm, 2015 Revenue
1. Perkins+Will $60,040,000
2. HDR $56,664,000
3. HOK $50,435,000
4. Payette $35,458,760
5. Stantec $34,755,593
6. Flad Architects $29,730,000
7. SmithGroupJJR $26,205,000
8. DGA $21,133,997
9. Page $19,500,000
10. ZGF Architects $18,405,848
TOP 30 SCIENCE + TECHNOLOGY CONSTRUCTION FIRMS
Rank, Firm, 2015 Revenue
1. Skanska USA $461,469,485
2. Suffolk Construction Co. $307,964,240
3. Whiting-Turner Contracting Co., The $141,886,037
4. JE Dunn Construction $100,808,913
5. Turner Construction Co. $91,930,708
6. Gilbane Building Co. $52,712,000
7. DPR Construction $40,625,000
8. Jacobs $24,060,000
9. Sundt Construction $23,322,783
10. Hill & Wilkinson General Contractors $21,132,000
TOP 50 SCIENCE + TECHNOLOGY ENGINEERING FIRMS
Rank, Firm, 2015 Revenue
1. Jacobs $51,420,000
2. Affiliated Engineers $29,447,000
3. Vanderweil Engineers $21,653,900
4. CRB $10,200,000
5. RMF Engineering $6,285,000
6. Mazzetti $5,199,075
7. Thornton Tomasetti $4,686,534
8. Newcomb & Boyd $3,466,430
9. Rist-Frost-Shumway Engineering $3,335,000
10. Global Engineering Solutions $3,275,000
The 980,000-sf, $931 million facility is the result of a unique financing mechanism that brought together three of the U.K.’s heaviest funders of biomedical research—the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK, and the Wellcome Trust—and three leading universities—University College London, Imperial College London, and King’s College London.
“The Crick,” as it’s known, is organized into four “laboratory neighborhoods” that encourage multidisciplinary interaction among its 1,500 scientists. Offices and labs have floor-to-ceiling glazing. The facility is designed around two atria that allow visibility throughout the building and between floors.
The design emphasizes communal space by enabling people to peer into multiple floors, according to Larry Malcic, AIA, LEED GA, SVP/Design Principal in the London office of HOK, which designed the lab. The idea, he said, is to “put science on display and promote collaboration.”
Projects like The Crick practically force scientists, engineers, and technicians from disparate fields to interact. “Things are happening between disciplines now, and there are a lot more buildings with oddball combinations of sciences,” says HDR Design Principal Dan Rew, AIA, LEED AP.
The state of Maryland’s $180 million Public Health Lab, which opened last year at Forest City’s Science Park, in Baltimore, exemplifies this pattern. HDR provided architectural and engineering services for the five-story, 200,000-sf lab, which does testing, consulting, and offers regulatory support related to infectious disease, epidemiology, environmental, and regulatory public health issues.
The open-lab concept allows operations to scale up and mobilize quickly in the event of an emergency, says HDR VP Warren Hendrickson, AIA, LEED AP BD+C. The ground floor, where first responders train, is visible from the street. The building is also linked to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In Seattle, the 270,000-sf headquarters of the Allen Institute is programmed for team science, says Kay Kornovich, RA, LEED AP, NCARB, Managing Director, Perkins+Will, Seattle. She says the institute wanted to break down walls between “carpet” people (managers) and “vinyl” people (researchers).
The building, which opened last December, focuses on brain and cell sciences. It is organized in a series of “petals” grouped around a six-story atrium. Cantilevered into the atrium are glass-walled collaboration pods outfitted with comfortable seating and whiteboards. “In any part of the building, you can see science and meetings going on,” says Kornovich.
Saving money can be the impetus for combining disciplines and buildings. Shepley Bulfinch’s design for the University of Houston’s Health and Science Building II connects the nine-story, 300,000-sf structure to H&S Building I. This will allow them to share loading docks, animal care facilities, and expensive equipment like NMR machines, says Luke Voiland, AIA, LEED AP, Principal in the firm’s Houston office.
“Clients are trying to do more with less, like bringing physics and engineering departments together,” adds Ed Burton, SmithGroupJJR’s S+T National Practice Leader. He points to the $80 million, 136,500-sf Senator Daniel K. Inouye Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency Center for Excellence, which opened last September at Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam, in Oahu, Hawaii. The lab consolidates operations that had been spread out over three military installations.
Some S+T facilities are incorporating business development into their objectives. Half of the space in the H&S building at the University of Houston will be used to train future pharmacists, and the other half for drug discovery research. This trend might explain why computational, simulation, and STEM labs are all the rage now. “The incubator mentality is creeping into labs,” says HDR’s Rew.
Last September, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, in collaboration with the U.S. Energy Department’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, completed the 210-sf Additive Manufacturing Integrated Energy demonstration project. AMIE 1.0 is a 3D-printed building designed to produce and store renewable power and share energy wirelessly with a 3D-printed vehicle developed by the DOE. The project aimed to demonstrate the use of bidirectional wireless energy technology and high-performance materials to achieve independence from the power grid at peak-demand periods.
Philip Enquist, FAIA, SOM’s Partner in Charge of Urban Design and Planning, sees AMIE 1.0 as “the beginning of a new chapter” in building for a resilient future.
Leo A Daly is working on the Emergent Technologies Institute, located on 6.5 acres of Florida Gulf Coast University’s campus, in Fort Myers. Public and private researchers will develop and test wind, solar, and agricultural technologies at this 24,600-sf incubator lab.
“We designed an infrastructure that provides a backbone for research, but remains adaptable to the academic and business communities’ needs,” says Robert Thomas, AIA, LEED AP, Leo A Daly’s Principal of S+T.
RETURN TO THE GIANTS 300 LANDING PAGE
Related Stories
| Dec 3, 2014
U.S., Canada, and Mexico finalize agreement to recognize architect credentials
The agreement represents over a decade of negotiations, bringing cross-border recognition of professional credentials from concept to reality in the spirit of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
| Dec 3, 2014
35 cities added to Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities Challenge
Chicago, Dallas, and Pittsburgh are among the U.S. cities to join the 100 Resilient Cities Challenge, pioneered by The Rockefeller Foundation.
| Dec 2, 2014
First existing multifamily buildings to earn Energy Star certification unveiled
River City in Chicago is one of 17 existing multifamily properties to earn Energy Star certification, which became available to this sector on Sept. 16 via a scoring system for multifamily properties that Energy Star and Fannie Mae had been developing for three years.
| Dec 2, 2014
Nashville planning retail district made from 21 shipping containers
OneC1TY, a healthcare- and technology-focused community under construction on 18.7 acres near Nashville, Tenn., will include a mini retail district made from 21 shipping containers, the first time in this market containers have been repurposed for such use.
| Dec 2, 2014
Main attractions: New list tallies up the Top 10 museums completed this year
The list includes both additions to existing structures and entirely new buildings, from Frank Gehry's Foundation Louis Vuitton in Paris to Shigeru Ban's Aspen (Colo.) Art Museum.
| Dec 2, 2014
Nonresidential construction spending rebounds in October
This month's increase in nonresidential construction spending is far more consistent with the anecdotal information floating around the industry, says ABC's Chief Economist Anirban Basu.
| Dec 2, 2014
Hoffmann Architects announces promotions
The architecture and engineering firm specializing in the rehabilitation of building exteriors announces the promotion of members of its Connecticut staff.
| Dec 2, 2014
SPARK designs urban farming housing for Singapore’s elderly population
The proposal blends affordable retirement housing with urban farming by integrating vertical aquaponic farming and rooftop soil planting into multi-unit housing for seniors.
| Dec 2, 2014
Bjarke Ingels unveils cave-like plan for public square in Battersea Power Station
A Malaysian development consortium is guiding the project, which is meant to mimic the caves of Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak, East Malaysia.
| Dec 1, 2014
9 most controversial buildings ever: ArchDaily report
Inexplicable designs. Questionable functionality. Absurd budgeting. Just plain inappropriate. These are some of the characteristics that distinguish projects that ArchDaily has identified as most controversial in the annals of architecture and construction.