Game-Changing Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery Moves Beyond Cookie-Cutter Labs

Interdisciplinary research and interaction have become key design drivers for new science research centers. Their increasing importance has led to a rethinking of the traditional "cookie-cutter" type layered lab plan with open labs to one side and offices to the other and lab support and procedure spaces in between. Initial mild variations to this formulaic approach have given way to a comprehensive rethinking in the latest breed: game-changing designs that shape-shift the standard floorplate to create gathering areas and a sense of community while still meeting performance and budgetary targets.

On the leader board of game-changers is the new Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery (WID), slated to open in late 2010 on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. This 330,000-gsf facility will be home to scientists from a variety of disciplines working together for terms ranging anywhere from six months to five years.

When designing the WID, Design Principal Craig Spangler of Ballinger, in Philadelphia, squarely aimed to accommodate its increased interdisciplinary focus. The traditional project objectives—maximizing efficiency, mechanical zoning, safety, security—did not go away, but new mandates to foster research group identity and incorporate a variety of interaction spaces emerged as additional drivers in designing the five-story building.

Spurred to rethink the traditional layered approach and its more modern variants, Ballinger developed an unconventional profile that responds to all identified needs: the floorplate is a modified triangle anchored by three separate 75'x75' pods of lab and support space. In between the pods are varying arrangements of meeting rooms, RA stations, and scientist offices. Two atriums, one along the hypotenuse and the other at the back of the building, fill the upper floors with light.

Even with these enhancements, the WID meets its numbers in terms of quantitative metrics. Looking at how this new design changed the space utilization equation, the architects found that WID fell very much within the normal range of most metrics categories.

“As the final design jelled together, we wanted to assess whether these additional drivers were impacting efficiency, whether they were functional and responsive to cost,” says Stephen Bartlett, Associate Principal at Ballinger.

Summing up the conclusions, he notes that the WID weighs in with the same research floor plate efficiency as its layered predecessors, in the range of 65 to 75 percent. The average amount of space per person is above the norm, at 230 nsf per researcher, compared to the traditional range of 200 to 220 nsf.

“We embarked on this discussion to see whether the new paradigm was impacting traditional drivers in either cost or efficiency,” notes Spangler.

The metrics suggest that this new generation of design is quite effective on all fronts.

Promoting Interdisciplinary Connections

The new science center on the Madison campus houses two entities, the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, funded by the state, and the privately funded Morgridge Institute for Research, named after benefactor John Morgridge, the former CEO of Cisco Systems, and his wife, Tashia. This public-private partnership, which will be referred to as the Wisconsin Institutes of Discovery, occupies three floors of collaborative interdisciplinary research space.

“The Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery aim to take collaborative, interdisciplinary research to the highest level, while engaging with the wider community. It is so important to foster interaction at every level,” says Spangler.

As incoming researchers step out of the traditional departmental framework, they get help integrating into their new environment from physical surroundings and organizing devices that reflect the identity of the interdisciplinary teams.

To achieve this heightened people-centric focus, the WID makes a clean break with the past, abandoning the old layered floor plan, whose static progression of office-lab-support space does little to mix building occupants together. In its place is an open, flexible floor plan that allows abundant opportunities for interaction.

“People should be able to move freely through the space and interact wherever they run into someone. The idea of flexible space is a very important driver for this highly open office environment,” Spangler says.

Offices and RA stations, often at the farthest points of the building, are the “glue” of the neighborhood, compelling occupants to travel along common circulation paths, thus increasing opportunity for chance encounters. Features that people use every day—meeting rooms, pantries, and stairways, for example—are also tucked in between the lab pods, another strategy that encourages interaction.

Shifting the traditional grid to a triangle resulted in several varied or unique spaces, an attribute that appeals to the tastes and inclinations of the next generation of scientists.

“We had to think long-term about how future occupants would adapt to the space, so there is a lot of variety,” says Spangler, noting that for the post-dotcom, Starbucks generation, a laptop and earphones are often all that is needed to work.

“There are no two spaces exactly alike anywhere in the building,” Spangler continues. “This also helps give occupants a sense of identity—describing their location by an adjacency or an exterior view, not a room number.”

The scheme of three pods per research floor breaks down the space into easily recognizable neighborhoods of manageable size, another contribution to promoting group identity and cohesion.

“We thought carefully about the number of scientists potentially in each laboratory pod and determined that 75’ x 75’ was the right size for anywhere from two to five researchers, depending on whether the lab was wet or dry.”

The decision on which labs would be wet and which dry produced a hybrid response. The center pod labs are treated as dry, although they are actually “damp,” with just light services to give them some flexibility. Eliminating heavy-duty mechanical systems from this one area also contributes to the WID’s sustainability goal by reducing energy consumption.

Transparency For Thicker Floor Plates

With visual ties a priority, the WID design emphasizes horizontal connections, unlike the smaller-footprint buildings with stacked research floors that tend to become isolating silos. The horizontal emphasis is achieved through larger and thicker floorplates, one of the major components of the game change.

At 320 feet long by 200 feet wide, the building’s external dimensions are significantly larger than those of previous generations. (According to Ballinger’s metrics, the average layered building width was 112 feet, while the average width in the variants category was 90 feet, making the WID almost twice as wide.) Given this expanded footprint, the architects had to come up with ways to deliver light deep into the interior. Their solution was a pair of atriums, one along the front axis, the other at the back.

“The building relies on more than just the perimeter to provide daylight for occupied space,” says Bartlett. “The WID is probably the thickest floorplate we have ever done, but it is also probably the lightest. It is easier to bring light into a building that is lower and thicker, than in a tall one, where it can become a not-very-pleasant light shaft.

“Transparency becomes a key issue in borrowing light from other spaces,” Spangler continues. “It also relates to the concept of ‘see and be seen.’ Researchers in the labs should have the opportunity to be inspired by chance interactions with those working in other environments. They go hand in hand. Once you have that transparency, you are free to make larger floorplates and lower buildings, which will encourage vertical as well as horizontal interaction.”

The Public Side

In addition to its research functions, the WID has a very public side, expressed primarily on the main level. Envisioned as a scientific town center, the ground floor incorporates features that attract both building occupants as well as the larger university population—a restaurant, dairy bar, a symposium center with breakout rooms. The front atrium gives the public the opportunity to view the research environment without entering it.

“We are trying to draw people in from other surrounding campus sectors,” Spangler comments.

The building’s internal transparency does dual duty establishing visual connections to the town center from the research floors while limiting access to these functional areas to occupants only.

There is one quasi-public space that penetrates the building vertically, a stack of teaching labs with their own elevator and staircase. Part of an active outreach program to promote science in the schools, these limited-access labs (there is one on every floor) are designed to host workshops and other sessions on teaching science for outside educators. Glass walls allow the visitors to peer inside the WID, engaging further in the research environment while maintaining the necessary balance for a secure perimeter.

Conclusions

Ballinger’s look at the three different iterations of science centers reveals the emergence of several key design features that set the stage for interactive interdisciplinary research. Among the conclusions are:

Co-locating people, labs, and amenities around light is essential to foster interaction.

The trend toward lower buildings and larger floor plates produces a higher population per floor.

The cost of the internal transparency so critical to larger floor plates is offset by less façade perimeter.

Safety, security, and transparency are inter-related, with a security perimeter surrounding the research environment critical to internal “connectivity.”

Summarizing the metrics generated by the game-changers, the architects note that even with their many innovations the newest buildings allocate more net square feet per researcher in fewer floors. The floorplates may be larger and thicker, but their efficiency does not decrease.

With these findings in mind, the architects stress the importance of rethinking the planning module to enhance today’s emphasis on interdisciplinary research.

“We need to think about the human equation in the buildings that we’re doing,” Spangler says. “It’s so important–the notion of minds coming together.”

By Nicole Zaro Stahl

This report is based on a presentation by Spangler and Bartlett at Tradeline’s Research Facilities 2009 conference.

Design Team

Architect: Ballinger, Philadelphia, in collaboration with Uihlein-Wilson Architects, Madison, Wis.
Landscape Architect: Olin Partnership, Philadelphia
MEP: Affiliated Engineers, Madison, Wis.
General Contractor: Findorff-Mortenson, a joint venture of J.H. Findorff & Son, Madison, Wis., and M.A. Mortenson Company, Minneapolis.

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