Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) is joining a growing wave of pharmaceutical research facilities that are incorporating small-scale manufacturing into their spaces. Fitting the manufacturing suites into an underground floor of an existing building was a challenge for architect, engineer, and scientist alike. The suites are designed to produce clinical vectors, important “vehicles” to which drug companies “attach” treatments so that those treatments reach the right location in a patient’s body.

More and more, workers aren’t going to an office and sitting at the same desk Monday through Friday. Today’s architects, builders, institutions, and designers need to plan for a future in which workers are nomads—moving from one place to another within a building or campus, or showing up in the office just one or two days a week. These nomadic workers are often mobile by choice, taking advantage of the flexibility that technology has enabled for academic staff, knowledge workers, and even healthcare employees.