Engineering Inc. - Winter 2020 - 20

"When we do that kind of renovation work, it makes us better
on the projects where we are designing a brand new facility.
We think about what needs to happen so the facility can be
renovated in the future."
TRACI HANEGAN
PRINCIPAL
COFFMAN ENGINEERS

purpose of protecting the researchers. The environment they are
working in should be as good as any environment would be if
they were in regular office space."
This typically means providing 100 percent outside air ventilation systems, which is significant because many of these buildings are required to operate 24 hours a day and thus can be big
energy users.
"There is a huge emphasis placed on us, as the engineers,
to design systems that are as energy efficient as physically and
humanly and technically possible," Simpler says.
Because significant improvements have been made to enable
recovering most of the energy that otherwise would have been
dumped outdoors, the energy and carbon footprint of these facilities is significantly lower than it was even five
years ago.
"But incorporating that amount of technology
is one of our biggest challenges," Simpler says.
Other common requirements for life science
buildings that go beyond what is needed in standard office space include medical gases such as
oxygen, nitrogen, and argon; vacuum systems;
compressed air; and extra exhaust capabilities,
such as point source exhausts and fume hood
exhausts.
At the same time, providing flexible space and
durability are important in a life science facility.
Spacious open floor plans are highly desired by
life science tenants who do not know what configurations or space requirements may be in their
future.
According to Carlos Perez-Rubio, principal
at HERA Laboratory Planners, planning ahead for change is an
important part of lab design.
"When we design a lab space, we want to make it flexible
enough so that it works for today but also so that it does not
require a lot of reconfiguration if capacity needs increase," he says.

the-art laboratory research buildings with all the necessary infrastructure," Simpler says, noting there are challenges to doing
that in a way that is cost-effective and timely. "The good news is
that because the foundations, structure, skin, shafts, and everything are already there, many of these buildings can be brought
online much faster than if we were to start from scratch and
design a new building."
Older manufacturing buildings are frequently candidates for
such adaptive reuse because they tend to have higher floor-to-floor
heights and heavier design capacity in the structure.
"Those are things you cannot change cost-effectively," Simpler
says. However, installing the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing
infrastructure required to make such a facility life science friendly
is relatively easy by comparison. "There are
obviously significant technical challenges associated with this, but it is very rewarding to see the
success we have had on a number of different
projects. The real challenge is going into existing buildings and coming up with solutions that
make those work just as well as new buildings."

Part of the
success of
these marketfocused brokers
and developers
comes from not
tying down their
tenants to the
typical fiveyear or longer
fixed lease

OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADAPTIVE REUSE

One factor spurring the growth of biotech in New York City is
the existing inventory of available buildings. Through an organization named NYC Builds Bio+, Simpler and others are educating the real estate and design communities as well as life science
professionals about the win-win possibilities of reworking older
structures into biotech facilities.
"We have had great success taking old buildings that were
intended for manufacturing and converting them into state-of20

ENGINEERING INC.

WINTER 2020

TRENDS AND CHALLENGES

Several technology trends are influencing today's
design inside laboratories in interesting ways.
"There is more automation, just as in every
industry," says Perez-Rubio. "Sometimes it
requires a certain test volume to be able to run
a machine efficiently, but we are finding that
the instrumentation is beginning to offer higher
and higher capacity. At the time, the technology
is also becoming cheaper so that you can run
more automated tests."
Another trend is toward multifunction instrumentation.
Rather than needing several instruments to perform a series of
tests as a sample is moved from one to the next, some newer
instruments perform multiple tests on the sample without the
need to handle the sample in between.
There also is a trend toward mobility, which takes advantage
of the smaller, more portable instruments by mounting them on
a cart so they can be rolled right into a patient room. Indeed,
Perez-Rubio cites the speed at which technology is changing as
one of today's more difficult challenges.
PROVIDING FOR CURRENT AND FUTURE NEEDS

Growth and modernization in life and health science facilities
often require renovation of existing spaces and systems. This

Engineering Inc. - Winter 2020

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