2012 – 2014 and Beyond
Published January 17, 2012 on TradelineInc.com
The objective of Tradeline’s 2012 forecast of research and research facilities futures is to identify the big ideas and important trends in research directions and research facilities that are expected to define research facility initiatives for the next two years and beyond. These forecasts involve overarching changes in the types and focus of research programs, design drivers, lab types, priority facility features, money and economic models, overall building plans, design concepts, and project success criteria. We also examine forecasts that were made two years ago and answer the question, “What has panned out in the last two years, and what has not?”
Tradeline’s second biennial Research & Research Facility Futures report is the collective work of ten North American research facility planning specialists who have spent most of their careers interacting with representatives of research institutions from all over the world about science futures. These are individuals who have the fascinating and special vantage point of gleaning insights and perspectives from a large number of thoughtful, forward-thinking scientists with views on what the practice of research will be like two years from now and beyond. The forecasters are:
| Russell M. Chernoff, MAIBC, MAAA, AIA, NSAA Founding Partner Chernoff Thompson Architects Steve Hackman, AIA, LEED AP Kenneth A. Kornberg, AIA Jack Paul, RA, LEED AP BD&C Mark S. Reed, AIA, LEED AP |
Jeffrey L. Schantz, AIA Principal Jacobs Consulting Samir Y. Srouji, AIA, LEED AP Stanley Stark, FAIA, LEED AP Mark Whiteley, RIBA Jeffrey R. Zynda |
All the forecasts in this document come from one or more panel members and have been reviewed and critiqued by all panel members, but there is not necessarily universal agreement among panel members on every point of view. The objective is to get points of view expressed, not to craft a document of 100% consensus. The final work of knitting together panel member inputs into the collective whole, therefore, is the responsibility of the editor, and that is me.
Steve Westfall, Ph.D.
President
Tradeline
RESEARCH RACE DELAYED, AND SOME NEW RUNNERS
2012 – 2014 and beyond
The U.S. and Europe will be marching in place with respect to research funding for the immediate future (two years) – few actual money outlays for major research facility initiatives. “Stalled” is the operative word, with the possible exception of the U.K. where some major investments in research centers will begin to take shape. The research activity profiles of China, Singapore, India, Australia, and some Mideast centers will rise as those locales work to create critical masses for what they hope will become centers for science and technology. This will eventually up the pressure on U.S. and European governments to put financial commitment, rhetoric, and public relations behind high-profile science initiatives to maintain leadership positions in the sciences, retain top scientific thinkers and doers, and develop technology-based industry – but probably not before 2014. The jury is still out on whether big investments in large scale research facilities in such places as Russia, the Mideast, and other relatively new entries to the high-profile research arena will actually capture significant amounts of research talent from the developed countries. At the state government level, no research races will emerge anytime soon due to financial woes that are in most cases more serious than at the federal level (states can’t print their own money), but a few economically-better-off states, such as Texas, will use their relatively okay financial positions to further their competitive positions in research at the expense of other states.
As the outlook for financial recovery improves, look for research-cluster competition to heat up not only from already established clusters (such as San Francisco, Cambridge, Boston, Toronto, and Orlando), but also from some new municipal players who aspire to be contenders and replicate the successes of others in gaining broad-based economic rewards from recruiting high wage earners to their cities and stimulating local development (New York City being a current example). Whereas municipal governments in general may currently be short on funding capacity, some aren’t, and there are many that have other important resources to contribute, such as political leadership, low cost land, infrastructure support, tax relief, zoning, start-up assistance, and project expediting. Cities with private universities, medical schools, and already developed science and technology hubs will have an edge here because of the absence of the political and bureaucratic overhang of state government.
Two years ago: “A research spending race U.S. vs. Europe”
In 2010, a majority of the Research Futures Panel members were looking ahead to the beginnings of significant research spending races in which the U.S. and European countries (as well as different states in the U.S.) would start ramping up their rhetoric, public relations, and financial commitments to further their respective positions of technological and scientific competitiveness and leadership. Clearly this has not happened – not between the U.S. and Europe, nor to any significant extent between U.S. states. The decline of federal and regional revenues, unemployment, and debt have weighed heavier and longer on research programs than most had expected. So, filling in the long-languishing research activity hole created by the shrinking of such great past but now decimated technology-creation giants as Bell Labs, Xerox Parc, and the like remains a distant vision.
THE GROWING HUMAN FACTOR IN RESEARCH
2012 – 2014 and beyond
Research focused on the perceived needs of humanity which has the potential of yielding successful results (cures, procedures, solutions, products, or market advantage) in a relatively short time period (less than 10 years) will dominate the funding scene. For the foreseeable future it will be health and diseases (the biggest segment), energy, food (and the security thereof), famine, communications, and the environment. “Needs of humanity” research will crowd out much funding for the kind of basic, breakthrough research that went along with the U.S. Apollo program, except where basic research can sell itself under the “needs of humanity” label.
Research activity will become an increasingly social process involving face-to-face collaboration within small interdisciplinary teams focused on targeted research problems. This will mean that the entire research work environment will become an integrated collaborative workspace – not just meeting rooms added to conventional office and lab spaces. Social mapping of how teams interact will become an important step in the facility planning process. The planning standard for competitive research work environments for such teams will include the entire work environment – internal visibility (openness), outside views, shared research tools, cafés, fitness facilities, child care, personal services, transportation/commute infrastructure, and access to housing and schooling. While digital communication technologies will be used for networking, the face-to-face aspect of research will grow in importance.
Big Pharmas will make attempts at “entrepreneurializing” their research environments with small, face-to-face teams, but they will find limited success simply because the facts are that they are large corporations with large-company bureaucracies; in their merger consolidations they are creating even larger research centers; and where success is found in small-group research activity there is an underlying tendency to try to “scale up” the small group model. Look instead for the Pharmas to focus on initiatives to build joint venture research linkages with leading researchers and small research teams at major research universities.
High-end artistic embellishments to research facilities of the kind that are already common in Europe have not spread significantly to the U.S. as predicted in 2010. But what will happen is that research buildings will grow in their importance as visible showcase investments for research institutions in which space will be sacrificed if necessary to incorporate the attention-getting design features that boost institutional reputations and attract top scientists. Therefore, look for research buildings to start feeling more like “five-star hotels.” Projects of this kind are showing up in the Mideast, China, and Singapore, and they will up the design ante for U.S. and European institutions.
Two years ago: “A new humanization factor in research”
Look for a shift in focus to the human side of science, and this will come in three areas: 1) shifting research priorities that focus on the needs of humanity, 2) research processes that are more social, and 3) high-end artistic embellishments to research facilities of the kind that are already common in Europe will spread to the U.S. via transatlantic personnel movement.
Research activity will be done with smaller research teams, smaller research centers (or at least making them feel smaller), and, with respect to the Pharmas, attempts will be made to inject entrepreneurism back into the pharmaceutical culture to compete with the “new stuff” that the startups are generating.
THE NEW PROCESSES OF RESEARCH
2012 – 2014 and beyond
Look for continual growth in the phenomenon of collaborative, worldwide, asynchronous (different time zones) research activities on common projects, but with the following limitations. First, the significant issues of intellectual property rights, legal barriers to cross-border technology transfer, institutional and corporate competitiveness, and national and regional economic development goals will limit disaggregated research activity to areas of basic and translational research where there are no perceived near term profits or economic benefits to be gained from successful research outcomes. Also, look for the collaborating parties to be situated primarily in already established major research centers or members of “star” research teams.
The most productive research teams will be small groups of four to eight people all located on the same floor or adjacent floors of the same building. While some use may be made of the latest and greatest real time video-conferencing and telepresence technologies to collaborate with individuals and teams in other locations, those technologies don’t tend to work well for people living in vastly different time zones, they are cumbersome to use (scheduling of video-conferencing equipment or rooms), and they are not mainstream to the way research teams work. Instead, researchers will be leading-edge adopters of the growing number of low-cost, easy-to-use, at-your-fingertips communication tools such as smart phones and iPads, and (where real time person-to-person exchange is called for) Skype, Web-X, and Go To Meeting. As for the electronic information exchange part of disaggregated research activity, look for a major move to Cloud computing applications to occur, not the growth in the number of more powerful scientific computing, information storage, and telecommunication nodes. The exception will be in the growth of scientific imaging and modeling which will increase the demand for scientific computing data processing and storage capacity.
Look for face-to-face contact with fellow research team members to be the central feature of research activity. Electronic communications tools will become increasingly powerful efficiency enhancers where face-to-face isn’t possible, but they will be supplemental to the main activity.
Two years ago: The new processes of research
Research activity will be increasingly disaggregated (multiple entities loosely connected) with research groups spread out around the globe working on common projects. Look for scientists in the lead, or parent research institutions to spend most of their time managing research activity being done elsewhere. Look also for research organizations to have a purchase appetite for the latest and greatest communication technologies to facilitate the disaggregated research model.
New electronic communication and computing capacity products are coming that will change at a personal level how research communities work. This involves very user-friendly (definitely not now, but coming) work collaboration and meeting tools, auto calendaring, search, scheduling, meeting arrangements, meeting notes, and notes storage, circulation and retrieval. All this will be run by central scientific computing and storage nodes, which will mean even more computing power and support of hardware and software systems.
TRANSLATIONAL RESEARCH
2012 – 2014 and beyond
Contrary to the 2010 statement that the U.S. lags in the area of translational medicine, the U.S. is actually now seen as a worldwide leader in the practice of translational medicine. Under the NIH’s new priorities and models for research funding, which now emphasize translational research in medicine, look for many more U.S. healthcare researchers to shift the focus of their research to translational projects and for research institutions to grow their translational research programs and establish new translational research centers and institutes. Look for the new NIH priorities, along with what U.S. institutions are doing in the translational research arena, to impact research plans and programs in other parts of the world.
Two years ago: Translational research
By European standards, the U.S. is behind in the practice of true translational medicine with the integration of research with patient treatment. Much of the translational medicine idea is still talk in the U.S., but in the UK it is action. Look for European processes and facilities responses in this area to be recognized and then adopted in the U.S.
RESEARCH FACILITY STANDARDS
2012 – 2014 and beyond
Space plans for research facilities will be dictated by new research processes and owner pressure to get more research program per net square foot – not the old planning standards of square foot per researcher and linear feet of bench space per researcher. The old planning standards will be discarded as a recipe for the over allocation of space. The new facility planning models will focus on the creation of innovation-focused environments, cultural transformation, new research processes, new equipment, new uses of equipment, the concept of “process stations,” and a general trend away from “wet” research toward “dry” or “damp” research. Those planning models will fully integrate office space, meeting rooms, circulation, shared equipment, processing stations, the concept that “collaboration happens everywhere,” and the future-proofing of lab buildings into research facility solutions for new buildings or major renovation projects.
Owners will still rely on metrics for rationales behind project plans and expenditures, but new metrics will be developed that will address end objectives related to return on investment, research processes, shared equipment, collaboration, flexibility, and overall business models for research buildings. Look for more upfront time to be devoted to project analysis and developing business case rationales using these new metrics.
For an increasing number of urban high-rise building projects which will be built in such select cities as New York, Boston, and Chicago, and some Canadian and UK cities, different metrics and standards will be developed reflecting particular challenges in construction costs, floor plate efficiencies, mechanical system distribution, high-rise team collaboration, and equipment sharing. However, for most research building projects, the default planning position is, and will continue to be for many years, four- to five-story buildings in park-like, campus, and suburban areas that have less constrained sites. In general, cost/benefit analyses for most research building projects will not in the foreseeable future significantly take into account the cultural, life-style, and financial business model advantages of city locations.
Two years ago: Research facility standards
Gone are the standards for square feet or ELF(equivalent linear feet) per researcher, but rather the model has now shifted to functional planning based around processes and equipment – that is, what is needed to do that particular research function.
There is much focus on high-rise lab buildings (anything over 15 floors) in Europe, the UK, and parts of Canada due to the need to create research communities where researchers and support personnel already live or can easily get to (good existing housing and transportation infrastructure). Such sites tend to be in cities where land is expensive. Look for this model to grow in the U.S. along with a new set of lab facility challenges involving small floor plates, floor-to-floor circulation, team collaboration, core facilities, flexibility, net/gross efficiencies… and the list goes on.
NANOTECH FACILITIES
2012 – 2014 and beyond
Now, two years on, we see that the word “resurgence” in the case of nanotech facilities was not the right word, but nanotech facilities are resurfacing, and will continue growing as increasingly common components of research programs in fields beyond those related to electronics, computing, and communications. The operative word now for nanotechnology will be “convergence.” Nanotechnology will increasingly be merged with many distinct technologies and methodologies from the physical, life, molecular, and engineering sciences to create a host of new, integrated-science pathways to discovery and solutions. Nanotech facilities will show up regularly in research building renovation projects, expansions, and new construction for a wide spectrum of research applications ranging from electric energy storage technologies, materials, and life sciences, as well as applications in commercial products such as cosmetics where the “scientification” of commodity products has significant commercial benefits in marketing and profits.
Two years ago: “A resurgence for nanotech facilities”
Look for a comeback in interest in nanotech facilities fueled by the search for the ultimate electrical storage technology for autos and non-peak electrical-generation storage where there are huge financial rewards to be captured and where many feel the solution lies in the use of nano-materials and nano-structures.
SUSTAINABILITY
2012 – 2014 and beyond
The European models for energy-use efficiency in lab buildings will set the standards into the next decade. As rising energy costs in the U.S. (where energy costs are far below those in Europe) create increased financial pressures, look for some U.S. pioneering cases of Environmental Health and Safety departments getting behind changes in lab infrastructure and operations. Such envelope-pushing showcase projects may involve new efficient methods of heat recovery from lab exhaust, in-lab chilled beams, displacement systems, some form of lab air recirculation, and an increasing number of appropriate situations where ductless fume hoods can be used. Look for increased use of energy-saving constant volume low-flow fume hoods and demand-control technology.
Beyond energy, do not look for “sustainability” to be viewed by scientists as a major planning factor. However, the label “sustainable” will become a standard requirement for project funding proposals and institutional image and as an overarching motivator, guide, and standard for increasing bottom-line economic operational efficiency. Look for LEED™ to be replaced by more holistic whole life green business assessments such carbon and net-zero assessments.
Two years ago: Sustainability
The U.S. is way behind Europe and other overseas regions with respect to sustainability for highly technical buildings. The main hurdle is the long-employed safety rule of thumb that dictates once-through air in labs. There are good design ideas “out there” that will overcome the once-through model, and look for these ideas to gain traction in the U.S. as organizations get more aggressive about cutting energy costs.
Big overseas projects are very serious about sustainability design and low energy use in lab buildings. Look for these projects to become the trend-setters and benchmark standards in terms of features and systems.
STREAMLINED PROJECT PROCESSES
2012 – 2014 and beyond
For major design firms, BIM is now commonplace – “it’s the way we do business.” But for owners and contractors, the use of BIM is still in transition, and it will take yet another two to five years for the industry to work out an understanding of the potentials, legalities, and the practical processes of BIM technology. Issues to be resolved include BIM-capable CMs wanting owners to exclude non-BIM-capable subcontractors, and for designers and owners to work out where the currently superior (for design of HVAC, curtain walls, etc.) CAD CAM programs fit in. For the next two years look for owners to be struggling to understand how BIM changes project processes and what to do with BIM-based documentation. The immediate outlook is for an industry disconnect between owners, designers, contractors, and subcontractors on BIM that will be in process of being resolved.
Look for conventional design-bid-build projects to remain popular as long as there is an economic climate in which owners can take advantage of competitive pricing. In spite of the continuation of design-bid-build processes, look for owners to increasingly seek ways to get the benefits of early designer/constructor team collaboration in the design phases, like Integrated Project Delivery.
Two years ago: Streamlined project processes
Especially with respect to research and other high-tech buildings, owners, designers, and builders alike are in transition with respect to BIM-type computerization of projects. Currently owners are asking for BIM-based documentation, but they are not familiar with the way that BIM-based projects change capital project processes. Over the course of the next two years, owners will become more BIM-process savvy, and they will start prequalifying bidders based on the bidder’s BIM capability and experience.
The old standard of design-bid-build for research buildings will change to give the constructor greater leeway in making efficient execution happen. This is a construction cost savings issue. Like the construction tower crane innovation of the 1960s that came from Europe, new project delivery models will come from Europe as well. One such innovation is the Design-Build-Novate model in which the architect works for the owner in the conceptual stages, then re-contracts (novates) under the builder for design-build execution. One streamlining feature here is the production of only those detailed design drawings needed to get the job done.
A WAVE OF BUILDING SYSTEM RENOVATION PROJECTS FOR NOT-SO-OLD RESEARCH BUILDINGS
Owners will realize that their not-so-old (1970s-1990s) research facilities are big energy hogs compared to the new stock of efficient research buildings. They will also realize that many of their not-so-old research buildings have already become victims of deferred maintenance and voracious eaters of maintenance and repair dollars. Also, because there is expected to be a shortage of funding for new buildings for several years, renovation will be where the main capital project action will occur. New technologies in HVAC design, such as effective chilled beams, will allow what were previously regarded as “impossible” renovations to occur within existing structures. Rising energy costs will yield attractive paybacks and ROIs for investments in renovating even not-so-old building systems. Look for a wave of investment activity in these kinds of projects where project rationales will be based on “best value” analysis, funding availability, and sustainability goals, and where logistical planning to minimize research program disruption will be as important as mechanical system redesign.
Two years ago: Not on the panel’s list of predictions
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Copyright 2012 Tradeline Inc.
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