“We believe it is essential to take a look at what types of operating processes will be used in the proposed facility before any design work begins,” says Mark Corey, principal of Flad Architects, who refers to this approach as operational-based design.

“Design of any research facility, especially those involving large numbers of animals, should begin from the standpoint of truly understanding how the facility plans to operate and factoring that knowledge into the design process,” says Corey. “This is a much better approach instead of designing a facility, then forcing the occupants to ask themselves how they will operate within it.”

He adds that too often researchers are asked to literally live with the consequences of design.

“The benefits of considering operational systems can be especially significant for larger facilities that may house as many as 30,000 cages,” says Corey. “Even what may seem like minor operational decisions, such as how bedding is changed and discarded, can have a huge impact on overall design since this one small decision affects the entire flow of the facility.”

Holding Rooms

“The holding room is basically the building block of an animal facility,” says Rachel Nelan, senior associate at Flad. “Since it will commonly constitute about 40 percent of the net program, we can’t overstate the importance of spending time in planning and early design to determine the right size and the right configuration of the holding rooms.”

She adds that it is important to base design decisions on how the animals will be housed, how much flexibility is needed to change species or caging type, how much equipment the holding rooms will contain, and how many people will need to function in the space.

“We recently began using a new method to calculate the cost of holding rooms that factors in both space usage and operational requirements,” says Nelan. “Rather than using traditional measuring benchmarks such as square foot per cage or number of cages per room, we feel that it is beneficial to understand the construction cost of the rooms with the intended caging in place, represented as a cost/cage. This allows a quick assessment during planning of the relative costs of different room types being considered. It also considers the area required in the room to operate the facility. Smaller rooms with less aisle space may seem less expensive to build, but in reality are more costly to operate.”

Corey and Nelan identify the following as key design drivers for holding rooms:

• Species and Type of Research—The design team should identify the facility’s immediate needs in terms of what types of research animals will be kept in the holding room, and what type of research will be conducted upon move-in and in the future, if possible. This directly affects caging type and size requirements for the holding rooms.

There are substantial differences in the types of holding room space required to serve different animal populations such as rodents versus swine. Rodents are generally housed in dry rooms with little or no need for floor drains, while swine are typically housed in rooms that include floor drains or trench drains with wash-down capability.

• Facility Flexibility—Since research requirements continually change and evolve, the facility needs to have the ability to adapt to these changing needs by incorporating as much flexibility as possible into the holding room design. Examples include provisions for different species or other operations within the holding room such as research areas, in-room cage changing, or different caging systems.

“As with all projects, you ultimately need to determine what the budget can sustain in terms of holding room size and capacity and what level of automation can be incorporated into the rooms,” says Corey. “Ideally you want a level of flexibility that is affordable at the onset of the project, but leaves an appropriate amount of adaptability over the life of the facility.”

He adds that when facilities require a thousand or more cages in each holding room this also means more people will be in the holding room for research purposes and husbandry duties.

“We often suggest adding a second aisle to larger holding rooms to accommodate other things happening in the room besides changing cages,” says Corey.

Cage Processing

“Depending on how and where cages are disassembled for cleaning, the number of material transport racks needed can vary greatly depending on the size of the facility,” says Corey. “The design team needs to know what type of cage changing and washing processes will be employed within the animal research facility since this determines space requirements within the holding rooms, whether separate cage processing areas are needed, and ultimately controls the final material and process flow within the entire facility.”

He adds that although the majority of animal research facilities still change cages within the holding rooms, there can be significant benefits by moving that operation to the cagewash facility.

“Changing cages within the cagewash area rather than in holding rooms results in better biosafety control, better allergy control, and less material handling equipment within the holding room,” says Corey. “Although this requires more space allocation in the cagewash area, our studies have shown that it is generally more efficient since less husbandry staff are required in the holding rooms.”

He adds that Flad often uses process flow diagrams to illustrate different system options, including how the systems will fit in the proposed space and predictions of the system efficiency.

“Process flow diagrams, which are most often used in the manufacturing industry, can also be extremely helpful for architectural planning when clients are trying to determine the best location and method for specific operations such as disassembly and assembly of cages,” says Corey. “By reviewing various cage processing options as a flow diagram, clients can select the most efficient set-up by mapping out the best space usage for major equipment such as tunnel washers, rack washers, and autoclaves, and by reviewing how the people and materials will move through the proposed set-up.”

Bedding Handling Systems

“In recent years, most new animal research facilities include some type of automated bedding handling system,” says Nelan. “Today the question is usually not whether to include an automated system, but how sophisticated a system is necessary and/or affordable in terms of integration with robotics that may be handling the cages in cagewash.”

She adds that the answer varies for each project and relates directly back to facility size and budget parameters since most facilities agree that there are clear ergonomic benefits related to using automated bedding handling systems.

Compared to other industries where robotic applications are used to increase production efficiency and throughput, those are not the key benefits for animal research facilities. Instead, improved allergy control, better ergonomics, and more reliable throughput are the main reasons for using robots in animal facilities.

“Individual workers can still typically change a cage faster than today’s robotic bedding systems,” says Corey. “However, the robotic application is usually recommended for research facilities with more than 20,000 cages when the need increases for reliable operations in a very controlled, allergen-free environment.”

He points to the Toronto Centre for Phenogenomics (TCP), a 120,000-sf laboratory and vivarium housing 36,000 cages, which Flad recently designed, as an example of a facility that was able to incorporate a high level of automation.

“TCP was able to include an automated bedding disposal system that is combined with specially designed cage disassembly stations,” says Corey. “This provides extensive allergen control and as a result creates an extremely safe environment for cagewash attendants.”

He adds that TCP also has robotic washing and sterilizing areas, centralized animal bedding disposal and dispensing, and a series of refined, process-driven workstations to wash up to 6,000 cages each day. Animal bedding, clean and dirty, is transported throughout the building via an automated pneumatic system.

“In most cases integrating automation will improve ergonomic safety issues since fewer people are required to operate the cage processing and washing equipment,” says Nelan. “However, we still feel that each project is unique and requires a thorough analysis before deciding if and how much automation is justified.”

Nelan explains that Flad prefers to work with independent consultants to analyze automation needs so that a wide range of options can be presented to the clients.

“We want to have a thorough idea of how automation will impact the overall material handling flow, personnel usage, and equipment utilization,” says Nelan. “We also consider whether some systems can be introduced as manual operations and modified at a later date to include automation.”

She concludes that deferring some of the automation costs may help to reduce the first cost of projects.

“Often facilities forget to consider long-term cost benefits,” says Nelan. “Even though automation can generate a higher initial cost, this is a one-time fixed cost. However, the ongoing labor and operational cost of the facility goes on forever.”

By Amy Cammell