The BIO5 Institute’s Thomas W. Keating Bioresearch Building and the College of Medicine’s Medical Research Building (MRB) are intended to promote interaction among faculty and students from multiple disciplines, other institutions, and industry partners. The buildings are physically linked to foster interaction and to minimize redundancy by allowing researchers to share core service facilities, research equipment, and meeting rooms.

“Our goal was to have space for about 750 researchers collaborating with engineers, mathematicians, physicists, and chemists who are interested in partnering with the biologists to solve complex biological problems,” says Vicki Chandler, director of the University’s BIO5 Institute. “We wanted to create a hub to catalyze interdisciplinary molecular life sciences and to bring together scientists from multiple colleges and departments.”

The Keating building, new home of the BIO5 Institute, promotes research into molecular life sciences and provides economic development through interaction and workforce training initiatives with bioscience companies. It brings together world-class scientists from the five disciplines of agriculture, medicine, pharmacy, basic science, and engineering to study genes and protein systems.

The MRB houses basic scientists and physician-scientists who are studying muscular disorders, vascular biology, organ engineering, cell therapeutics, translational genetics, and molecular cancer therapeutics in order to better understand the molecular basis of human health, aging, and disease.

Connected via enclosed walkways and a white metal Ramada structure that rises 90 feet above the shared courtyard, the buildings are located on the medical side of campus to enhance interaction between basic and applied research disciplines. The notion behind bringing together scientists from multiple departments is to more easily translate basic research findings into real-world applications in medicine and agriculture.

The innovative buildings contribute to the State of Arizona’s plan to achieve national prominence in the field of bioscience, which has already been given a significant boost by the accomplishments of the BIO5 Institute. During its five years in operation, the Institute has developed state-of-the-art genomics and proteomics facilities and its scientists typically receive $100 million each year in highly competitive research dollars. Meanwhile, research funding at the College of Medicine grew to $135 million in 2005.

In order to sustain the type of research that consistently garners millions of dollars in funding every year, the University must have facilities to accommodate both current and future technology.

Principal Design Concepts

Interaction and flexibility converge as the primary design concepts to create an ideal environment for the discovery of scientific breakthroughs. Interaction is critical because the sum of outcomes from multiple researchers is greater than the individual parts. Both buildings are designed as four levels of flexible, interdisciplinary research space, faculty offices, graduate student workstations, and conference space that are organized into research neighborhoods. These neighborhoods, or clusters of scientists working for a common goal, can fuel new discoveries.

Complex problems can be more easily solved when researchers from many disciplines tackle the same issue. Federal agencies and other funding sources look more favorably upon institutions that distinguish themselves with a collaborative environment.

“The University has a long history and culture of collaboration going back to the interdisciplinary graduate training programs of the 1970s, many years before it was the buzz word of all federal agencies,” says Chandler. “Now, if you want to compete for complex federal grants, you need to show that you can do interdisciplinary research.”

Flexibility is important because technology changes rapidly and buildings must be able to respond to paradigm shifts in the most economical manner. Built-in flexibility also helps maximize the use of space as programs grow and contract, a concept that does not work well within the confines of the traditional “faculty owns four square walls” building layout.

Lab Particulars

As part of the goal to establish an interdisciplinary environment in each building, a generic open-lab format is used for the first time in the University’s history. Each lab module, which can accommodate eight researchers, is 660 sf with 330 sf of adjacent support room space. The cold rooms, equipment galleys, and shared resources are included in the support space, meaning faculty members who have open modules assigned to them do not necessarily own all of the space. Instead, researchers must share the resources.

“We made a lot of use of lab support space because one of the things that happens when you have an open lab is that there are certain kinds of activities that need to be segregated,” notes Chandler. “For example, you need to be able to darken the rooms for microscopy and there are safety issues involving the use of lasers, BSL-2, and radioactivity. It is onerous to certify a whole lab wing for BSL-2 activities if there is only a small amount of space dedicated to this type of work.”

The MRB features 48 molecular biology-type wet lab open modules, while Keating has 40 molecular biology-type wet lab open modules, four chemistry wet lab modules, and biosafety level-3 space encompassing two modules. The benches and cabinets are mobile and the utilities drop down from the ceiling, creating maximum flexibility to accommodate different types of research. The mixing of junior and senior investigators and the sharing of equipment enhances collaboration and mentoring.

One of the most important design decisions was to locate office and meeting spaces within close proximity, but not inside, the labs. There is no assigned desk space within the wet lab portions or support space; open office modules are organized in neighborhoods just outside of the labs, which leads to further intermingling of researchers and enables them to eat and drink at their desks. Having the offices located outside the labs helps enforce safety rules and makes the office space less expensive to build. Each of the buildings is comprised of a concrete structure that houses the labs and a steel portion where the offices are located, resulting in a savings during construction. Lab spaces are located along the perimeter of the buildings within a reinforced concrete structure in order to provide a vibration-free environment to protect sensitive research equipment and to more easily meet the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing requirements. The offices and meeting spaces are in the central core of the buildings.

Encouraging Interaction

Conference rooms and informal gathering spaces are scattered throughout each floor of the buildings to encourage interaction, and every break room leads outside to balconies or patios. Even the furniture design supports interaction, for example, by using square tables that can be pushed together for impromptu meetings or social gatherings.

Keating is connected to the MRB via walkways on three levels and the front entrances of the buildings face each other. The buildings also share large meeting rooms, inviting outdoor courtyards, and the overhead Ramada shade structure. Open stairways are designed to enhance interaction between floors.

“The interaction between the buildings is critical to the translational efforts and mandate of the BIO5 Institute,” says Chandler. “The faculty going into each building will share expensive equipment, saving us considerable money and resulting in interaction.”

Faculty and students from multiple departments have offices grouped together in neighborhoods.

“The neighborhoods are a key component of the buildings and will be a key component of our success,” says Chandler. “We programmed one faculty office and eight open office modules per open lab module and that gives us the flexibility to mix groups of researchers together.”

Campus-wide core facilities, consolidated in the buildings, include imaging, proteomics, genomics, biocomputing, and a genetically engineered mouse vivarium. Prior to the construction of the new buildings, these core facilities were located in four different structures on campus. All of the core elements are now consolidated on the ground floor of the Keating building, except imaging (in MRB) and the vivarium in the basement.

“They are located on the ground floor because the area is more open to people who come into the building, so that researchers who don’t work in the building can still have access to these facilities,” adds Chandler.

The criteria for assignment to the Keating and MRB buildings is based on four factors, including well funded research programs with a minimum funding requirement of $400 per sf. One-third of the space is allotted for researchers already on campus so they could help crystallize the new environment. In addition to bringing in research dollars, scientists working in Keating must have highly active collaborative genes with an interest in interdisciplinary, translational research and the willingness to work in an open-lab atmosphere.

Keating will house faculty from 13 different departments in six colleges, while the MRB faculty will come primarily from the College of Medicine. Faculty for both buildings are chosen because of their participation in a certain program, not because of the department they are in. The buildings were not constructed to house particular departments.

Steps are being taken to ensure the space will remain tidy no matter what type of researchers are working in a particular area. Peer policing with strong leadership from key lab managers on every floor will be used to enforce the cleanliness of the labs. Individuals moving into Keating are signing a memorandum agreeing to abide by the rules and regulations of working in the new space. Deans and department heads are also signing the memorandums.

Building Specifics

The 177,000-sf Keating building, completed in December 2006 at a total construction and equipment cost of $65 million, is expected to be fully occupied by March 2007. The building will house more than 300 researchers, 40 percent of which will be students. The 45,000-sf basement provides more than 20,000 sf for use as the mouse facility.

The shared services in Keating are used by University researchers, as well as academic and industry investigators from around the state. In addition to housing the core facilities, the first floor includes a 150-seat auditorium, a public lobby, café, administrative offices for BIO5, and conference rooms.

The second floor is used for biomedical engineering to study regenerative medicine pertaining to diabetes and cardiovascular issues, statistics and informatics, as well as the National Genographic Project, plant and animal genomics, human genomics, and personalized medicine.

Researchers on the third floor study asthma and other respiratory diseases, gene regulation, proteomics, metabolomics, and ways to improve food and agriculture. The upper floor, which has a BSL-3 lab, is used for drug discovery and research pertaining to cancer, immunology, medicinal chemistry, cell biology, and genomics.

The 142,000-sf MRB, completed in September 2006 at a cost of $55 million for construction and equipment, is used by researchers focusing on aging, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. The first floor is dedicated to cancer and imaging research and houses the Advanced Research Institute for Biomedical Imaging, a virtual institute that solidifies an imaging research community throughout the state.

The second floor is used by neuroscience researchers studying neurodegenerative disorders, while the third floor is devoted to molecular cardiovascular research and the fourth floor will be used for diabetes research.

Final Thoughts

Despite the successful completion of the buildings, certain aspects of the design would be different if the projects were being planned today. In particular, Chandler says she would increase office space by 30 percent to accommodate more informatics and dry lab research.

The ratio of open lab and support space would also be slightly increased to accommodate the specialty requirements of the buildings. Currently, the ratio is 1 to 0.5, but a ratio of 1 to 0.75 would be more suitable in certain parts of the buildings.

“Increasing the ratio would help in the segregation of certain types of activities, such as tissue culture rooms, laser use, radioactivity use, and microscopy rooms,” explains Chandler. “These activities are not easily accommodated in the open-lab modules and if we had a bit less space in the modules and a bit more in the lab support area, our programming would have been easier.”

These beautiful, functional buildings support the University’s mission by being highly flexible, maximizing interaction, and enhancing the recruitment of both faculty and students. The University is also reaping the benefits of new grant proposals and the receipt of funding based on planned collaborations between researchers.

By Tracy Carbasho