Novartis Creates Research Magic in A Candy Factory
Take the shell of a landmark building, add large doses of creativity, lighting, collaboration, and openness, and you have the formula for a new Lab of the Year winning category.
From sweets to science” is how the lead architect of this year’s Laboratory of the Year winner describes their project that transformed an aging 46,500 m2 candy factory near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, Mass., into a world-class biomedical research center. Swiss-based Novartis, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, chose to renovate the building where the New England Confectionary Co. (“Necco”) had made a variety of famous candies for 78 years to house its newly created Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, the headquarters for its research activities.
Since the U.S. National Park Service designated it as a Landmark structure, any exterior renovations to the Necco building were limited, right down to the window mullions. But, the architect, Stubbins Associates, also located in Cambridge, found that they could pretty much gut the complete interior of the building to create an interior environment that would encourage, foster, and facilitate collaboration and the exchange of ideas among the resident scientists.
Their accomplishment, performed in the short span of just 18 months, has been dramatic. So dramatic, in fact, that this year’s judging panel chose to create a new category for this Lab of the Year (LOY) winner—the category of “Adaptive Reuse.”
“We believe the ‘adaptive reuse’ category is important because as more research activities take root in urban centers near medical school and university hubs, there is likely to be more acquisition and transformation of older buildings,” says Stanley Stark, managing partner at HLW International LLP, New York.
“The award was given to recognize the interior renovations in the Novartis project,” says LOY judge Peter Van Vechten, an associate partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP, Chicago. “The design team made a complete transformation of image and use from 19th to 21st century. The project proves that existing buildings can be elegantly reused and given new life.”
Center attraction
The “beating heart” of this project is its atrium, a six-story amoeba-shaped open space in the center of the building that’s bathed in natural light from a large skylight. The atrium is animated with four round glass elevators and surrounded on each floor with break rooms, conference rooms, libraries, copy areas, and an espresso bar. “The innovative, undulating atrium is a great solution for a researcher interaction space,” says LOY judge Cynthia Walston, an associate principal with FKP Architects, Houston, Texas.
To create this space, the construction team had to literally blast through six floors of precast concrete, using a top-down approach beginning at the roof slab. A bottom-up approach was then taken to create the irregularly shaped curves on each floor.
A transformed lab culture
The lab environment is no less dramatic than the central atrium. An open, transparent lab environment was created by the design team to reinforce their client’s mission of changing the way the researchers do science by stimulating collegiality among them. Large, individual, single purpose labs characterized Novartis’ research labs in other locations, which carries through in this design. The largest lab is about 74 m long, running about two-thirds of the longest length of the building.
Lab benches are located at the perimeter walls, maximizing natural daylight and offering the researchers dramatic views of Boston, across the Charles River. Individual offices for laboratory heads, desk areas for scientific staff, and conference rooms are located between a hallway and the labs. To reinforce the sense of openness and transparency, all offices have at least one glass wall, allowing visual contact between researchers and fostering collaboration.
“The Novartis lab was a clear attempt to create a showcase of current practices in research operations, as well as collaboration and interaction,” says judge Stark from HLW. “It is largely a successful attempt.”
Connectivity between clusters of labs, offices, and workstations is achieved by incorporating full-height glass partitions between areas that were traditionally separated. Lab benches are modular and mobile, which can be moved to whatever configuration is desired. Plumbing and electrical services for bench-top or floor-mounted equipment are available from overhead service carriers. The labs were designed with evolution clearly in mind.
For low-hazard labs, the desk space is separated by an aisle and directional airflow. For all other labs, floor-to-ceiling glass partitions and glass doors separate the desk areas.
Specialty designs
A number of special lab designs were created for the Novartis project. One of these is the zebra fish facility, a vivarium containing breeding and support facilities for the efficient care and maintenance of zebra fish in Novartis’ functional genomics research. A quarantine room for these fish is served by a separate water circulation system. Dedicated support and research rooms are aligned along a corridor opposite the holding rooms. Again, the visual aspect comes into play here too, where visual access to the labs and open offices helps to ensure researchers are in communication and are safe.
Novartis’ Central Technology group consists of numerous analytical instrumentation capabilities. Several 400-MHz NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) devices are distributed throughout the building. However, a high-end NMR suite for the characterization of proteins was located on the 6th floor within a Core Technology Lab, which benefited from the high, nearly 6-m floor-to-ceiling heights available. A sophisticated vibration isolation system was developed to compensate for excessive floor vibrations.
Renewed amenities
Another unique design treatment was in the creation of two ‘bubble’ meeting rooms at the hub of the lab environment on each level. The rooms are equipped with rotating white boards that can be used for writing surfaces or as privacy barriers as required.
The original power plant building that contained the coal-fired boilers needed for candy production was also gutted and converted to a 2,200-m2 amenities building containing a 150-seat cafeteria on the upper level and a 180-seat auditorium on the ground and lower levels. The auditorium is equipped with state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment that allows international “virtual meetings.”
In a nod to tradition, the cafeteria has exposed ductwork and structural members that reflect its industrial past.
An $850,000 rebate from NSTAR, the Massachusetts electric and gas utility company, was awarded to Novartis for electrical efficiency measures incorporated into the building’s design. These included individually air-controlled fume hoods, installation of high-performance light fixtures, installation of high-performance chillers for chilled water supplies, and a high-performance heat recovery system.
While the team did not apply for LEED certification, the building contains a number of environmentally friendly systems including rubber containing recycled materials, bamboo flooring (a renewable material), low VOC (volatile organic carbon) carpets, fabrics, and furniture, light coloring of all surfaces and indirect light fixtures, and generous day-lighting concepts.
“This project is the first to be recognized as Lab of the Year for Adaptive Reuse,” says LOY judge Ron Garikes, executive VP/managing director at Karlsberger Laboratory & Technology Group, Birmingham, Ala. “This category recognizes design excellence in a building type that normally is less restrictive than a renovation and not quite as flexible as a new structure. This project takes full advantage of the existing structure from a design and functionality perspective and creates an exciting and creative research environment.”
—Tim Studt
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Since the U.S. National Park Service designated it as a Landmark structure, any exterior renovations to the Necco building were limited, right down to the window mullions. But, the architect, Stubbins Associates, also located in Cambridge, found that they could pretty much gut the complete interior of the building to create an interior environment that would encourage, foster, and facilitate collaboration and the exchange of ideas among the resident scientists.
|
“We believe the ‘adaptive reuse’ category is important because as more research activities take root in urban centers near medical school and university hubs, there is likely to be more acquisition and transformation of older buildings,” says Stanley Stark, managing partner at HLW International LLP, New York.
“The award was given to recognize the interior renovations in the Novartis project,” says LOY judge Peter Van Vechten, an associate partner at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, LLP, Chicago. “The design team made a complete transformation of image and use from 19th to 21st century. The project proves that existing buildings can be elegantly reused and given new life.”
Center attraction
The “beating heart” of this project is its atrium, a six-story amoeba-shaped open space in the center of the building that’s bathed in natural light from a large skylight. The atrium is animated with four round glass elevators and surrounded on each floor with break rooms, conference rooms, libraries, copy areas, and an espresso bar. “The innovative, undulating atrium is a great solution for a researcher interaction space,” says LOY judge Cynthia Walston, an associate principal with FKP Architects, Houston, Texas.
|
A transformed lab culture
The lab environment is no less dramatic than the central atrium. An open, transparent lab environment was created by the design team to reinforce their client’s mission of changing the way the researchers do science by stimulating collegiality among them. Large, individual, single purpose labs characterized Novartis’ research labs in other locations, which carries through in this design. The largest lab is about 74 m long, running about two-thirds of the longest length of the building.
Lab benches are located at the perimeter walls, maximizing natural daylight and offering the researchers dramatic views of Boston, across the Charles River. Individual offices for laboratory heads, desk areas for scientific staff, and conference rooms are located between a hallway and the labs. To reinforce the sense of openness and transparency, all offices have at least one glass wall, allowing visual contact between researchers and fostering collaboration.
|
Connectivity between clusters of labs, offices, and workstations is achieved by incorporating full-height glass partitions between areas that were traditionally separated. Lab benches are modular and mobile, which can be moved to whatever configuration is desired. Plumbing and electrical services for bench-top or floor-mounted equipment are available from overhead service carriers. The labs were designed with evolution clearly in mind.
For low-hazard labs, the desk space is separated by an aisle and directional airflow. For all other labs, floor-to-ceiling glass partitions and glass doors separate the desk areas.
|
A number of special lab designs were created for the Novartis project. One of these is the zebra fish facility, a vivarium containing breeding and support facilities for the efficient care and maintenance of zebra fish in Novartis’ functional genomics research. A quarantine room for these fish is served by a separate water circulation system. Dedicated support and research rooms are aligned along a corridor opposite the holding rooms. Again, the visual aspect comes into play here too, where visual access to the labs and open offices helps to ensure researchers are in communication and are safe.
Novartis’ Central Technology group consists of numerous analytical instrumentation capabilities. Several 400-MHz NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) devices are distributed throughout the building. However, a high-end NMR suite for the characterization of proteins was located on the 6th floor within a Core Technology Lab, which benefited from the high, nearly 6-m floor-to-ceiling heights available. A sophisticated vibration isolation system was developed to compensate for excessive floor vibrations.
|
Another unique design treatment was in the creation of two ‘bubble’ meeting rooms at the hub of the lab environment on each level. The rooms are equipped with rotating white boards that can be used for writing surfaces or as privacy barriers as required.
The original power plant building that contained the coal-fired boilers needed for candy production was also gutted and converted to a 2,200-m2 amenities building containing a 150-seat cafeteria on the upper level and a 180-seat auditorium on the ground and lower levels. The auditorium is equipped with state-of-the-art audiovisual equipment that allows international “virtual meetings.”
In a nod to tradition, the cafeteria has exposed ductwork and structural members that reflect its industrial past.
An $850,000 rebate from NSTAR, the Massachusetts electric and gas utility company, was awarded to Novartis for electrical efficiency measures incorporated into the building’s design. These included individually air-controlled fume hoods, installation of high-performance light fixtures, installation of high-performance chillers for chilled water supplies, and a high-performance heat recovery system.
|
Project: Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research Size: 46,451 m2 Budget: $200 million Staffing size: 500+ scientists Architect/Engineer: The Stubbins Associates, Inc., Cambridge, Mass. (lead architect); Bard Rao & Athanas Consulting Engineers, Boston (lead engineering firm); and Tsoi/Kobus & Associates, Cambridge, Mass. (exterior renovation and parking garage). Completion date: April 2004 |
“This project is the first to be recognized as Lab of the Year for Adaptive Reuse,” says LOY judge Ron Garikes, executive VP/managing director at Karlsberger Laboratory & Technology Group, Birmingham, Ala. “This category recognizes design excellence in a building type that normally is less restrictive than a renovation and not quite as flexible as a new structure. This project takes full advantage of the existing structure from a design and functionality perspective and creates an exciting and creative research environment.”
—Tim Studt
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