How Life Sciences Developments Can Redefine Urban Areas
Date Posted: January 16, 2024
Posted In: Discussion, Ideas, Organizations, Projects, Regionalism,
From Gensler: The design of buildings for sciences R&D is more rigorous than ever, amplified in recent years as the biotech industry has migrated to amenitized urban locations. In the competition for talent, many research-focused tenants are gravitating toward neighborhood amenities that were not possible in the previous generation of suburban research campuses. With the robust planning that these buildings require for material flows and tenancy variations, architectural innovation is unlocking complex sites.
Two Gensler projects serve as exciting examples of such innovation. In Seattle, Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. is expanding an existing life science campus through the addition of eleven50, a building requiring a unique solution given the site’s steep, freeway-adjacent slope and the city’s scenic view corridor requirement. In Berkeley, Lane Partners is finding opportunity in a narrow strip of valuable real estate between railroad tracks and an urban wetland, where adjacency to dining opportunities, as well as the waterfront, is a unique attractor.
eleven50: Designed to Maximize Flexibility
For 1150 Eastlake, branded as “eleven50 by Alexandria,” a unique offset massing of the building and core orients the facility’s research space toward views of Lake Union — and away from the elevated Interstate 5 freeway — while providing critical flexibility to enable multiple tenants to advance their scientific research.