But what exactly does the life sciences sector encompass? And what about the buildings which are home to this leading-edge work? Waterman’s Director, Huseyin Hussein, told us more:
“The life sciences sector is truly vast, including everything from Biopharmaceutical Tech, and Medical Tech, to Genomics and beyond, and with each of these sub-sectors comes unique requirements for the facilities they call home. However, with the pace of growth seen across the sector, demand for high quality life sciences space continues to outstrip supply, particularly in the ‘Golden Triangle’ of London, Oxford, and Cambridge.”
With brownfield sites often prioritised under local development plans, early site appraisal is vital to ensuring successful planning outcomes. Waterman’s Environmental Regional Director, Polly Clifton, explains why this is so important:
“Brownfield regeneration sites are attractive to life sciences developers since they are often situated in key locations close to talent pools, existing infrastructure, and established transport links. However, they can also have complex environmental issues, or pasts which involve industrial processes and historic contamination, so early engagement with environmental specialists is extremely important to ensure these risks are identified and mitigated, and that the planning process is then navigated as smoothly as possible.”
Discussing the impact of asset repositioning, Huseyin said: “Recently, we’ve seen a rise in enquiries relating to the retrofit of existing buildings to suit life sciences functionality. With careful analysis of the existing structure and building services arrangements, it’s often possible to deliver the space and amenities required within the specific parameters. For example, at Nottingham’s BioCity development, we repurposed a redundant existing building to create the Laurus, a leading incubator laboratory facility for small to medium sized research and development start-ups. Here, our design enabled the inclusion of flexible spaces suitable for Category 2 laboratories. Using sensitive design interventions, we helped repurpose an existing fixed bench laboratory into a multifunction flexible laboratory space able to expand and contract to meet tenant needs. Our specialists also developed a floor division plan which accommodated a varied layout, with fume cupboard and variable flow air handling facilities able to be tailored to the exact needs of each tenant.”
Once businesses are established in a space, it’s essential that they have room to flex and grow to suit their operational needs. At London’s Project Maple, another existing asset which was repurposed, this flexibility was built into the design from the outset. For this scheme, unhindered adaptability was critical to achieving the required design resilience to support the rapid evolution of the market. To support this, our specialists identified the optimum benching modularity relative to the planning grid and developed considered structural interventions to allow labs to expand and contract to meet the needs of incoming and growing businesses, without hindering the live and operational environment of the asset in which these works would be undertaken.
