Life Sciences
Back to Our SectorsCreating spaces that attract innovators, foster ecosystems and facilitate collaboration
Our urban hubs bring together start-ups and scale-ups, venture capitalists and multinationals into collaborative ecosystems. Our cross-sector experience helps repurpose and regenerate distressed assets into desirable and flexible lab space. And our masterplanning expertise is helping attract life sciences into communities.
Life sciences is moving beyond university campuses and expanding across both city centres and science parks. And that’s changing the approach to designing facilities.
Whether it’s transforming an underused shopping mall or expanding an existing science park, we bring detailed understanding of life sciences operations, expertise in placemaking and knowledge of planning – meaning we deliver viable schemes that achieve your goals.
Meet the leading designers heading up our team.
Flexibility & Collaboration
Our approach helps you capitalise on current trends and meet a broad range of user requirements – while giving you flexibility as those requirements evolve.
For example, we’ve designed lab and write-up spaces that can be adapted for small start-ups and large pharmaceutical companies. And we’ve developed collaboration and co-working areas that enable knowledge sharing while protecting proprietary IP.
We’re stakeholder engagement experts, with a proven co-creation process that gives scientists the specifications they need while balancing deliverability and how use may evolve over the long term.
Importantly, we design for delivery and long-term value. Adaptability is ingrained in our methodology, factoring in opportunities for reconfiguring spaces and enhancing plant based on changing requirements.
Place-driven Design
Life sciences doesn’t succeed in isolation. It needs an ecosystem that supports the process from R&D to manufacture to back-office functions.
Creating those ecosystems requires facilities with the right connectivity, attracting the best talent and enabling logistics. It also involves a symbiotic relationship with the surrounding area, making facilities part of the wider community – whether it’s in an urban location or Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
We’re experts in placemaking, with a deep understanding of how to create spaces that connect people, uses and the public realm. This includes factoring in social value and sustainability – all our life sciences schemes are designed to a minimum of BREEAM Excellent and EPC A ratings to support the transition to carbon neutrality.
Planning Complexity
The urbanisation of life sciences has put a new emphasis on planning, as developments increasingly involve a change of use.
We have a proven track record helping schemes achieve consent, whether it involves revitalising underused retail or repurposing historic buildings.
Clients tell us our cross-sector expertise adds tremendous value here, as it brings a deep understanding of how different spaces are designed, adapt them for effective life science use, and manage the many community and planning considerations that arise within that process.
From public realm to air quality and waste disposal, our vision and grasp of detail mean we create viable schemes that satisfy diverse stakeholder groups.
40
Years’ experience
