Space Use

The 21st century workplace offers multiple types of environments, and workers typically occupy an assortment of spaces throughout the day. How to get the right people in the right place at the right time to spark collaborations for creative problem-solving is more than just a question of corralling bodies. It’s a matter of creating the right kind of spaces and a path of least resistance toward utilization with the occupant experience as the prime focus.

The new scientific workplace (NSW) transcends departmental and organizational boundaries to create a high-performance open environment that fosters multidisciplinary collaboration, creativity, productivity, innovation, and product development. While the concepts of multidisciplinary teamwork and open buildings are not new, the NSW uses an overarching approach to ensure a facility is flexible enough for future development, and provides an environment that attracts top scientists.

Modern research and academic facilities are increasingly adopting design principles typically used by small, fast-growing startup companies that depend on flexibility, innovation, and collaboration to succeed. Open workplace settings, dedicated collaborative spaces, smaller work teams, onsite entertainment zones, and shared support hubs are all examples of design features that are being deployed by larger research institutions and other organizations to improve performance and leverage changing demographics for better outcomes.

The Novartis headquarters in Sydney, Australia, demonstrates how to create a multi-tenant space where employees at all levels can choose their work setting depending on their activities, as long as there is abundant space for collaboration and informal interaction across all sectors. To create appeal for Novartis employees and attract new tenants, the redesigned floor plan offers several options for activity-based workspace, and has multi-purpose furnishings, demountable walls for offices and meetings rooms, and cast-in-place conduits for data and power in the slab with floor boxes.

What the university needs: A spacious, modern science building, with an additional 5,000 sf. What the university has: An old, dark, rather cramped classroom building, built for a different era in education, with inadequate systems, and no room to expand. It’s a common problem on university campuses, and in many cases solving it requires flexibility, creativity, and patience. At the University of Pittsburgh, Howard Skoke, AIA, of EwingCole Architects and Engineers and the university’s own Ilona Beresford worked together on a six-month master plan to devise a $65 million modernization. The project, scheduled to begin construction in May 2019, will open the building to new uses and adapt its systems for health and efficiency. At the same time, it will preserve a historic exterior and cost far less than a new building.

The WELL Building Standard™ codifies several design and operational attributes that promote human health and wellness in the workplace. The outgrowth of a collaboration among architects, engineers, and the medical community to identify and address today’s top public health concerns, WELL takes conventional wellness initiatives several steps further by advancing a people-centric agenda that focuses holistically on employees’ physical, mental, and social well-being.

Carnegie Mellon University is rethinking the way it approaches change management by broadening how it approaches the people involved. A workspace is not just four walls that contain an employee; there are also memories and a sense of identity tied up in that space. Doing the hard work of acknowledging those feelings, and working closely with employees to address their fear of change, can lay the groundwork for a more successful transition into a new space.

Project SagaMORE is an office building addition to a 2001 former biopharma pilot plant, the Protein Production Laboratory. In 2014 the building was converted to a high-performance collaborative office space with an industrial loft aesthetic. The facility was designed without private offices, and instead features multiple shared “we” spaces that include project, conference, huddle, and phone rooms. The original conversion project achieved a LEED Platinum CI rating. 

The Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) is designed for the researchers of the future: up-and-coming scientists who prefer a streamlined, team approach to research, rather than being trapped by organizational limitations; a collaborative, not leader-driven, environment; and technology-enabled methods and workspaces. The intention is to foster multidisciplinary interaction in flexible spaces, as they pursue innovative solutions for cancer research.

Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General) in Boston is developing new methods and metrics for accurately analyzing space use data to determine how efficiently scientists utilize expensive research space. The new approach helps administrators use objective, defensible data to properly distribute limited, high-value space and resources. By leveraging the extensive data available in its custom relational database, the Research Space Management Group (RSMG) can track all research space, as well as the various types of research programs assigned to that space, including on-site, off-site, laboratory, and support spaces.

1. Space Planning and Management Software for the 21st Century Workplace
2. Rodent Cage Technology Evolves Beyond the Simple Holding Vessel
3. The Future of Space is Flexible and People Focused
4. Centralized Research Support Facility Reaping Significant Benefits
5. Eli Lilly Employs Shared Space and Innovative Infrastructure 
6. The Gold Standard of Maker Space at MIT
7. The Future of Research Facility Design
8. Virtual and Augmented Reality are Reinventing Medical Education
9. Unique Survey Tools that Inform Design and Utilization of Academic Medical Campuses
10. Superlabs Drive Collaboration, Flexibility, and Space Efficiency in Academic Sciences

In the concluding Open Forum/Town Hall session of Tradeline’s Facility Strategies for Animal Research and Biocontainment conference, moderator Derek Westfall, president of Tradeline, and subject matter commentators, Mark Corey with Flad Architects and Tiffini Lovelace with EYP Architecture & Engineering, led a knowledge exchange on questions posed by conference attendees. This is an edited transcript of that exchange.

As many institutions of higher education increase STEM offerings, the impact can be more pronounced at liberal arts colleges, because the growth in STEM typically results in new construction or renovation in their only science building. The construction of new space is most challenging in organic chemistry, where the number of fume hoods per section is a unique pedagogical requirement. To avoid disrupting a department entirely during construction, an institution can encourage students to take a course elsewhere—at a community college or nearby university partner—or to plan their schedule to avoid the downtime. But this reduces only the number of sections, not the entire need, because maintaining the faculty’s teaching ability and course’s availability to students are critical to the institutional mission. The solution is to find or create swing space.

With its new Clinics and Surgery Center, University of Minnesota Health has taken a bold new patient-centered, technology-enhanced approach to clinical care. Patients are greeted by a concierge instead of waiting at a reception desk, and are guided through their visit by a step-by-step itinerary; and their progress is monitored through an RFID-chipped badge they wear for the duration of the visit. The building has improved the way care is delivered, while at the same time improving space utilization.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a widely used buzzword that refers to a rapidly growing network of internet-connected devices and sensors that transmit data back to a central repository for rapid analysis. This network generates massive amounts of information that can be used to maximize energy efficiency, optimize space use, reduce costs, and increase operational visibility across all types of facilities and organizations. LED lights with sensors, smart grid meters, intelligent HVAC and security systems, even mobile and body-worn devices, all generate tremendous amounts of data that both humans and computers can use to make better decisions.