The Science of Transforming Outdated Lab Buildings

Dr. Steve Nelson joined the faculty at the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in 1984, three years after its Medical Education Building (MEB) first opened. A lot has changed on the New Orleans medical campus in the past 40 years: Nelson is chancellor of the Health Sciences Center, now known as LSU Health, and he’s overseeing a complete overhaul of the MEB’s top three floors, which are dedicated to biomedical research. Rather than the cellular, siloed nature of the labs in the original layout, the new, open-plan design aims to realize a metaphor Nelson has used for years with his researchers, comparing them to LSU’s champion football team: sometimes the quarterback is the one who wins the game, and sometimes it’s the receiver; but neither can do it without the full team’s support. “That’s how we should do research,” he says, “so how do you construct a space that fosters teams and facilitates teams?” Perkins Eastman, in partnership with MultiStudio, responded with an adaptable design that transforms how research and discovery will take place now and into the future.

The renovated floors will feature light-filled open labs, shared scientific and computing resources, and communal areas to exchange ideas. When he first joined the faculty, “everyone had their own grant, their own space, their own equipment,” Nelson says. “This is a new day. It’s a whole rebirth of our research enterprise.”

In this respect, aging university laboratories like LSU’s Medical Education Building, as well as Perkins Eastman’s renovation and expansion of the Albert A. Michelson Center for Physics at the University of Chicago, are coming into the modern era with more glass, fewer walls, and more productive, collaborative environments for modern scientific inquiry.

The most visible upgrade at LSU remakes the building’s fortress-like exterior into a transparent facade, illuminating the reimagined laboratories within. “At night, it’s going to glow, so this is like the signpost for the whole building. The insertion of a glass façade across three floors is going to be very dramatic,” says Steve Gifford, a Perkins Eastman principal and the leader of its Science + Technology practice. Adds Senior Associate Ceyda Metghalchi: “The researchers spend most of their hours in these spaces, so it’s really important to give them natural daylight.”

The existing Medical Education Building presents an opaque exterior to LSU Health’s campus in New Orleans. Once construction is complete in December, the renovated top three floors will feature glass curtain walls on the east and west sides of the building, revealing the open-plan labs within.
All “before” images courtesy Perkins Eastman

In total, the project required streamlining the chock-a-block layouts of each 50,000-square-foot floor plate in a way that encourages more interdisciplinary work and accommodates robust computational research, where little if any existed in the nascent computer age of the late 1970s and early ’80s when the building was designed.

“The evolution of that [science-lab] typology has been leaps and bounds,” says Principal and Executive Director Stephanie Kingsnorth, who specializes in the transformation and modernization of old and historic buildings. “The things that are now expected in those buildings really necessitated a huge amount of change.”

One of the main drivers of this change, Gifford says, was the National Institutes of Health, which in 2004 issued the Roadmap for Medical Research, a strategic initiative aimed at accelerating the pace of discovery in biomedical research. Among its priorities was a call for more interdisciplinary teams and sharing resources across fields. During this same time, the institution’s Design Requirements Manual also started emphasizing collaborative and flexible research environments that can adapt to changing methods and inquiries. In other words, “you have to have certain types of facilities to apply for grants,” says Kirk Deslatte, LSU Health’s assistant vice chancellor of property and facilities. “If they’re not laid out with an open lab design, you get points off for that.” Another top goal for LSU is becoming one of the National Cancer Institute’s Designated Cancer Centers. Currently, just 72 programs across the country have achieved this gold standard—none are in Louisiana, which ranks in the top ten states for cancer mortality.

Open labs on the east and west sides of the LSU Medical Education Building encourage interaction and collaboration between research teams, helped along with volumes of daylight that will penetrate the remodeled floors. 

Part of becoming eligible for this designation is having a top-quality environment for basic science research, which LSU aims to achieve with the MEB renovation. “People are going to go where they have the best facility and where they have the best opportunities to achieve. If I don’t have a first-class facility, then I can’t attract first-class investigators,” Nelson says. Noting that the Perkins Eastman team engaged directly with him and his researchers to design a new environment that would meet their needs and accommodate those of future generations, Nelson adds, “we’re highly satisfied with the level of work that’s being done.”

The existing building’s elevator banks opened into narrow corridors. In the new design, people getting off the elevator are welcomed by an open lounge, which encourages socializing and fosters interdisciplinary research.

A “day in the life” diagram illustrates the free flow and movement that the new MEB floor layouts will offer. The open plans are meant to adapt to changing uses in the future, as medical research continues to evolve. The ease of circulation “encourages people to go outside of their space, where they can feel a sense of community, a sense of teamwork,” says Dr. Steve Nelson, chancellor of LSU Health.

By removing doors, walls, and labyrinthine hallways, far more researchers will be able to make use of the labs. And for the first time, they will have access to lounges on each floor where they can gather and mingle, as well as conference rooms for meetings and presentations. Surrounding these central gathering areas on each floor are three specialty core labs for shared equipment, Gifford says, “based on a core-centric approach to contemporary research.” Once the new space opens in December, Deslatte says, “Being able to associate with everyone in those spaces is really going to benefit us. It’s a huge culture change.”

University of Chicago Albert A. Michelson Center for Physics

Perkins Eastman has an established track record in the modernization of midcentury campus buildings, which notably includes the Michelson Center for Physics at the University of Chicago. The original, low-lying concrete structure was built in 1965. Within the layout of that building, formerly known as the Laboratory for Astrophysics and Space Research, “there was no spatial connection between the floors,” Gifford says. “There was no architectural incentive to encourage students and faculty members to engage.” He adds, “the exterior envelope was leaking and energy inefficient. This required a complete re-skinning of the existing facades, coordinated with the expanded structure to achieve a seamless overall design composition.” On a positive note, the original building was designed to support vertical expansion. In the ensuing modernization, “we pushed it out and popped it up,” says Kingsnorth, who says the approach is like other projects in which buildings of this era don’t lend themselves to renovation within their rigid concrete frames.

Before-and-after views of the Michelson Center for Physics illustrate how the formerly low-lying concrete-frame structure was transformed into a multistory building with dynamic facades, engaging more actively with the surrounding campus. “After” photographs by Sarah Mechling / © Perkins Eastman

The expansion enabled the university to combine several physics programs under one roof. Previously, even sections of the same department were divided between buildings, says Emil Martinec, a physics professor within the university’s Enrico Fermi Institute who was the faculty’s representative during the design process. “Adding the extra two floors gave us the space to put theorists and experimentalists in the same field together in the same building,” he says. The design also allowed experts in adjacent fields to move closer together. “That’s been extremely beneficial for exchanging ideas,” Martinec adds.

The original building also lacked any kind of communal or gathering space. The new, expanded design includes a sunny atrium, a central kitchen, and several alcoves for breakout meetings—all of which offer blackboard surfaces to sketch out scientific explorations.

Top row: A central atrium and terrace draw faculty and staff together, while niches along the upper balcony allow impromptu discussions. Bottom row: The original building offered no kitchen or space for colleagues to grab coffee. Photographs © Christopher Barrett

New experimental labs were also critical to the success of the center’s expansion and modernization, allowing more university physicists to collaborate:

Photograph by Andrew Rugge / © Perkins Eastman

A cantilevered seminar hall reaches into the university’s North Science Quad, hosting frequent lectures, colloquia, and conferences that expose the center’s work to thousands of students and visiting scientists each year. It’s still a major attraction years after the building’s opening, whereas the original building housed seminars in a central, windowless room with low ceilings and a structural column obstructing views. Now, “when you’re in the space, it feels like you’re floating in air,” Martinec says. “It lets in tremendous light, and it’s just a beautifully proportioned room. That’s one of the more excellent features of the design.”

The cantilevered seminar room pulls its occupants into the North Science Quad at the University of Chicago. Its design allows flexibility for multiple types of desk and seating arrangements.
Photograph by Sarah Mechling / © Perkins Eastman

Most campuses have several “giant science buildings” that were built in the mid- to late-20th century, Gifford explains, and because they tend to have 50-year life spans, the past decade has seen a lot of rehabilitation work at universities across the country. The challenge, in each case, is how to modernize an inefficient structure to make it feel new, with programming that’s aligned with contemporary research and technology. There’s ingenuity and beauty in transforming an old building rather than abandoning it, Kingsnorth believes. “When you find the right fit and you can make it work, the enjoyment of the fact that you’ve solved this Rubik’s Cube is tremendous,” she says. “There’s no better feeling than seeing the moment when people walk back into it and go, ‘I didn’t think this was possible!’ ”