An open, transparent lab promotes collaboration while thriving in an urban setting.
The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Univ., both of Cambridge, Mass. sought to expand and replace their facilities to accommodate their expanding research activities. The new laboratory needed to mesh with the urban site that was chosen and yet have all of the qualities of a state-of-the-art research facility in which more than 600 life science researchers could think, create, investigate, and collaborate.
 The façade of the Broad Institute is composed of two distinct wall types: a grid wall of precast concrete panels punctuated by unit windows and large "glass box" window elements. Photo: Anton Grassl/Esto |
The design team worked together to create a lab that fulfilled all of these requirements and to meet the mission of the Broad Institute: to disseminate its research to the global scientific community. Because of this, The Broad Institute has received High Honors in R&D Magazine’s 2007 Lab of the Year competition for its overall quality, particularly in its sensitivity to client objectives and its ability to excel as a lab within an urban, developer-owned facility context.
Collaborative scienceThe Broad Institute is a collaboration of MIT, Harvard Univ. and its affiliated hospitals, and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, all of Cambridge, Mass. The institute’s focus is applying the power of genomics to medicine by empowering creative scientists to construct new powerful tools for genomic medicine, to make them accessible to the global scientific community, and to apply them to the understanding and treatment of disease.
The interdisciplinary Broad Institute sought new space for expansion and upgrades of its facilities and selected one of the final development plots available in the Kendall Square mixed-use neighborhood of Cambridge. The site is adjacent to the cooperating Whitehead Institute and across from the MIT campus. The opportunity to adapt an existing office core-and-shell design with specific scientific features in the fit-out appealed to lead architect Elkus Manfredi Architects, Boston, Mass., who had three primary objectives:
• Create an open, transparent lab to facilitate cross-pollination of scientific disciplines.
• Build in flexibility and adaptability to make the building useful over an extended time.
• Provide an environment that would stimulate great ideas.
Additional goals included the creation of public space suitable for hosting scientific meetings; preservation of a design that would allow long-term adaptive reuse (including as a non-science facility); and sustainability.
The transparency of discovery  In the laboratory zone, transparency is evident with views across the open labs to the full height "glass box" curtain-wall, capturing natural daylight and exposing the research work to the street below. Photo: Elkus Manfredi Architects |
The building occupies a key site on a major artery within the existing Kendall Square street grid. The shape of the building is derived from the city grid, and its height and mass reference neighboring buildings. The facades are composed of two distinct wall types: a grid wall of precast concrete panels punctuated by unit windows that complete and reinforce the street walls of the neighborhood, and large “glass box” window elements that have become the physical manifestation of what Eric Lander, the Broad Institute’s founder, calls the “transparency of discovery.”
In general, the building’s open labs are placed within this “glass box” at the south and western perimeter, with support space at the core. Closed special-purpose labs and related support are situated on the northern side of the facility.
An office and collaboration zone occupies the eastern side of the building and is accessible to the rest of each floor via a racetrack corridor ringing the core. The corridor is punctuated by safety stations and support zones and has interior windows and glazed doors wherever possible, minimizing the amount of precious floor space devoted to “corridor-only” use.
On the first floor, an expansive lobby houses a museum, a 300-seat auditorium, and an oval conference facility. The lobby’s glass wall panels can be opened to exterior plaza space on the west and south sides of the building, providing full integration with the outdoors as desired.
A grand staircase leads to the mezzanine level, which provides access to an oval “boardroom” overlooking the lobby and museum.
The second floor is primarily a lab floor, but also has a 125-seat “program room” conference facility, an associated kitchen and lunch room, and access to an outdoor terrace garden. The garden, situated atop the loading dock on the facility’s north side, spans the space between the Broad Institute and an adjacent parking garage and provides an alternative point of entry at the second floor. It is the primary access route for faculty who are based elsewhere but drive to the institute for weekly meetings in the program room.
Floors three through six are typical lab floors and include research, support, and office space. The assortment of support spaces encompasses tissue culture labs, controlled temperature rooms, NMR rooms, an HPLC facility, a BSL-3 lab, and a “ballroom”-type robotics room. The seventh floor has a larger amount of offices and a raised-floor computer room, accommodating the administrative and information technology staff.
The core and shell building was largely designed to accommodate the Broad Institute’s specific requirements, and included some features that would have exceeded a typical core/shell design for a high-hazard lab. Notably, fire stairs were improved; a fire wall was added within the core; and the penthouse design was changed to accommodate specific equipment.
Open design  A markerboard wall surface flows from the team area through glass doors and into the large conference room, allowing spontaneous and formalized ideas to mingle much the way they do in the scientific process. Photo: Anton Grassl/Esto |
Maintaining transparency without hampering function is a key theme of the design. Interior glazing is abundant and is used to an unusual degree. For instance, one of the two fire-rated stairs at the building core has upgraded finishes and a full wall of special clear glass, allowing it to function as primary circulation without jeopardizing the fire rating. The scheme is intended to encourage tenants and visiting scientists to use the stairs rather than elevators for short trips, increasing the opportunities for interaction.
Similarly, a series of two-story lounges at the western end of the building, connected with open stairways, offer researchers quick access to shared support labs as well as ample opportunity for informal encounters.
Floors 2, 3, and 4 are provided with four-hr-rated area separation between the office and lab zones; lab entries that penetrate the fire separation are equipped with primary glass doors to maintain differential pressure while allowing views. These doors are paired with secondary fire-rated doors concealed in the side walls of the entries, which close in the event of an alarm to establish complete separation.
Each floor’s office zone is constructed around an open team area and kitchenette, serving as a social hub for a large conference room, single and double offices, and “hoteling” areas for visiting researchers. Marker-board walls flow from the team areas into the conference rooms, encouraging conversation and problem-solving.
The open labs in the “glass box” are generic and are generally organized with write-up stations at the exterior wall. Sinks are at the interior bench ends, with an in-lab equipment zone adjacent to the racetrack corridor. The write-up stations are separated from the benches by full-height glass partitions that improve users’ sense of privacy and ownership; many users take advantage of the glass by writing formulas on them with erasable markers. In most cases, only half-height walls separate the labs from the racetrack corridor, with a full-height wall around the core support zone. This tactic adds to the impression that the corridor is functional space rather than simple circulation.
Labs are column-free and have 4.6 m floor-to-floor heights, improving operational flexibility. Bench systems incorporate both fixed and movable casework; the primary bench configurations include:
• Four 2.4 m fixed workstations (two on each side) with adjustable shelving and turret-mounted services, plus a pair of 1.8 m mobile sections that connects to the fixed benches for electrical power and can be easily removed to accommodate large equipment.
• Fully mobile workstations with retractable wheels, with or without shelving, with services provided by overhead boom-style carriers.
• Fully fixed components with sinks at either end of a six-workstation bench, mainly used for chemistry-intensive labs between banks of fume hoods.
All benches are served by regular above-ceiling mechanical and electrical distribution. Multiple 10-cm diameter plugs are provided in the ceiling for access to point exhaust, and can be used to hook up snorkel fittings or ductwork for Plexiglas enclosures, or drilled out to accommodate smaller tubing for equipment vent ports.
Praise for BroadR&D Lab of the Year judges complimented the design’s adaptability in particular. “The Broad Institute is a creative solution to a lab in a developer building that must be convertible back to office space,” says Richard Rietz, Independent Strategic Planner for Labs, Helena, Mont. “The floorplate was set up for deep office zones, so the architect used glass walls to bring natural light into what otherwise would have been a very dark interior. As lab settings become more urbanized, we must find more creative ways of using non-lab buildings for labs, and Broad is one of the best I’ve seen.”Erik Mollo-Christensen, of Tsoi/Kobus & Associates, Cambridge, Mass., noted the pleasant atmosphere created by the building’s design. “The brightness of the colors, the glass and openness between the labs and support areas, and the refinement of the public spaces were outstanding. The nature of Broad is inherently interdisciplinary, and the scientific structure dissolves academic departmental barriers and politics. The labs are mixed and based on project functions, not specific disciplines. The support and office spaces are well-integrated with the labs, and the open and glassy interiors support this.”
Broad Institute director Lander concludes, “This building embodies the principle that I think is most essential to the work of this generation, and that is openness.”
—Julie Higginbotham Vital Stats
Project: The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Mass.
Size: 2,787 m2
Budget: $90 million
Architect/Engineer: Elkus Manfredi Architects, Boston, Mass. (lead design architect); AHSC McLellan Copenhagen, San Francisco, Calif. (laboratory planner); Wilson Architects, Boston (programmer); Maryann Thompson Architects, Cambridge, Mass. and Signer Harris Architects, Boston (conceptual/schematic design architect); BR+A Consulting Engineers, Watertown, Mass. (MEP/FP engineering); McNamara/Salvia, Boston (structural engineering); John Moriarty & Associates, Winchester, Mass. (construction management).
Completion date: January 2006 |
