What to consider when life sciences is part of a mixed use scheme

Investors who may have had their fingers burnt through investing in other industries during the pandemic want greater security, and ESG impact investors are equally as attracted to the merits of the sector.

Subsequently, developers are looking beyond the pure life sciences facilities in the ‘golden triangle’ of London, Cambridge and Oxford to consider the use of life sciences in mixed use schemes across the country.

Life sciences, by their very nature, have complex requirements that other mixed use scheme elements like office and residential don’t have. Their fit-out includes laboratories, teaching rooms, collaboration spaces, workshops, clean rooms and plant rooms – all with strict compliance and regulations.

Early collaboration with the end user and project team is key to avoiding any nasty surprises down the line. We break it down to three specific areas to give some serious consideration – structure, space and equipment – to give your scheme the best chance of success.

When it comes to the structural element of a life sciences build, it’s important to get the right floor to ceiling height as there are far more services required than, for example, an office fit-out. Bigger voids are needed to house large duct work, whether that’s in a suspended ceiling or exposed.

Technical areas or plant rooms are typically significant spaces and can stretch along an entire length of lab space or existing in the entire floor above the lab space. This is to ensure efficient capacity of services whether that be HVAC, electrical, BMS or utilities and ensuring close proximity to the space.

Waste disposal is a big consideration as part of the structural element of a life sciences build. Disposal of specimens, samples, and mediums all need proper processes and routes and, in the case of disposal through waste pipework, consideration needs to be given on the materials (e.g., Vulcathene). Outside the building, life science waste might need to be segregated from normal foul waste and all environmental and safety aspects need to be evaluated, i.e., treatment on site or safe removal from site.

When it comes to life sciences space – the environmental space is just as key a consideration as the physical space. It’s essential to define the environmental grade of spaces like a clean room very early on because this has significant impact on fit-out and technical aspects such as air changes and pressure gradients. If, for example, users are moving between spaces with different environmental grades and bio-safety levels, the air gradient needs to cascade correctly to avoid contamination.

A biological safety level classification has its own requirements and constraints including strict access control, ante rooms, interlocks, decontamination systems and toxic waste disposal and equipment such as biological safety cabinets.

The stringent commissioning and qualification requirements will also add both cost and time to your schedule with each system and process requiring documentation to demonstrate it is performing to pre-defined criteria.

A higher clean room environmental grade means you’ll need HEPA filters fitted to the duct work to capture particles so that grade can be met. HEPA filters are expensive and, when scaled over a significant floor area, the cost soon mounts up.

When fitting out clean spaces, you might want to ask, do partitions, glazing and fittings (e.g., pass through hatches) need to be flush to minimize dust collection.

For life sciences in a mixed used scheme, we’d recommend collaborating with the end user as early as RIBA stage 0 (strategic definition) rather than leave it until RIBA stage 3 (spatial coordination) because space is used so differently to other sectors and they’re the experts in what’s needed. You certainly need gowning and changing areas with showers and lockers – it’s ancillary spaces like these that all place a demand on the available space in a development.

Consideration needs to be given to utilities such as gases, purified water (DI/WFI) or steam and how this is generated (e.g., bottled or generated on site). If there’s nitrogen, then environmental detectors need to be installed to monitor levels of gases in the air as you can’t smell a nitrogen leak.