Insights Category: Thought Leadership

The 6^th annual Battle of the Biotech Bands was on May 30^th.  Each year, four bands consisting of biotech industry employees, compete for the number one spot with hit-covers and an energy that never fails to amaze. The winner is awarded 50% of the event’s proceeds, which are donated to the charity of their choosing. The remaining proceeds are split amongst the other bands’ chosen charities.

2019 bands and charities:

• Semi Good Lookin’ – Playing for International FOP Association
• Led Zymmelin – Playing for Harmony4Hope
• JC & the Beakers – Playing for The Children’s Cardiomyopathy Foundation (this year’s winner!)
• Almost the Cure – Playing for Joseph’s Hope Scholarship Fund for Epilepsy Foundation of New England

The Battle of the Biotech Bands is a super fun event, and one that we at TRIA like to support. This year, we (Donald and Staci) were given the opportunity to act as band leads. Working closely with the event co-chairs and the band members, we helped to make sure that shared instruments would be available, sound check times were scheduled, and, most importantly, that everyone would be comfortable when it was their turn to hit the stage. Being backstage offered us a different perspective, but one that was just as fun as being among the crowd.

This year, Battle of the Biotech Bands raised $120,000 for charity. A commendable achievement aided by the hard work of the bands, organizers, volunteers, and attendees.

Check out some of the pictures we took backstage. Can’t wait for next year!

Article originally appeared in High-Profile Monthly on October 25, 2018.

Within the growing biotech and life sciences sector in the Boston area, the requirements for successful lab space design are well understood by owners and designers in this field. Most labs and research facilities have become quite straightforward in their design, following best practices for flexibility, compliance, and function. More challenging are the specialized facilities that must meet very demanding requirements in order for them to perform properly and safely. Those requirements are what really differentiate these facilities from the bulk of research facilities that are designed today.

What is a specialized facility? There are four notable categories:

1. cGMP “Current Good Manufacturing Practices” facilities,for drug, device, and HCT/P (human cells, tissues, and related products) manufacturing, need to meet strict regulatory requirements for the manufacture of safe and effective products;
2. Micro-electronics and nano-technology facilities require cleanrooms and low-vibration spaces that are typically outside the range of normal laboratories;
3. Biocontainment facilities require precise environmental controls for research on infectious diseases; and
4. Vivarium, or animal care facilities, involve a more rigorous set of requirements than a standard research facility. These facilities must provide a stable and humane environment for the animals while controlling the transmission of disease.

These specialized environments do have some aspects in common. First, specialized facilities in general are unlike common research spaces. They typically don’t utilize a modular, flexible design strategy, as their demanding uses don’t lend themselves to generic, repetitive space elements. Instead, spaces in most specialized facilities are custom-tailored to their special and demanding functional needs, and sometimes even necessitate the construction of dedicated buildings when the structure, infrastructure and service need can’t be met by a standard research building. Second, depending on the building and end user’s budget, the functional spaces in specialized facilities are sometimes supported by an interstitial floor of mechanical services and equipment. All four categories of the above mentioned facilities require high air flows and air changes to keep the air either clean or contained to protect the laboratory process, people, and/or the environment. The interstitial floor, consisting of a double-floor or a suspended deck in a double-height space, provides a level above the functional space for air systems and equipment to service the working area. While the interstitial floor is sometimes preferable, it is important to note that there are other design options that may better suit the end user’s specific needs. Finally, specialized facilities are significantly more expensive than traditional research space, so they need to be carefully designed to be cost-effective while still performing well.

Because specialized facilities are very costly and difficult to create, and particularly difficult to modify or expand later after construction, it’s critically important to get it right. It is fairly common to “overdesign” a facility of this type in performance characteristics such as space, capacity, and systems. Mechanical systems may be installed with more capacity than current needs dictate or to support future expansion. The specifications and performance of the floor slab may be enhanced to create an ultra-low vibration environment that exceeds thresholds for conducting sensitive testing or research, particularly in nanotechnology and microelectronics facilities. For owners, there is security in designing a high-performance facility so that it serves their needs today and in the future.

The best advice? Get a qualified and experienced design firm involved from the very beginning. Specialized research and manufacturing environments are mission-critical facilities that are complex to design, must perform at their intended level, and leave no room for error in meeting function, building codes and guidance documents. Micro-electronics and nano-technology facilities use hazardous chemicals, life science cleanrooms are defined by the particulate count in the air, biocontainment facilities must prevent the release of deadly diseases, and vivarium must provide a healthy and controlled environment for sensitive research animals.  If a facility doesn’t operate properly and precisely when completed, the entire mission of the facility and the organization may be at risk. An experienced designer approaches specialized facilities with an eye for reducing risk while providing an increment of innovation in how each facility is designed and procured.

About the Author

Jonathan Romig is a senior project manager and senior lab planner at TRIA, a partner-led architecture firm with a focus on designing unique spaces for science & technology and corporate clients. For more information, please visit https://tria.design/.

Article originally appeared in Boston Business Journal on December 9, 2016.

As a high school volunteer at a children’s hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, Jeannie Pierce Thacker’s eyes were opened to how architecture and design impact patients and families. After getting her undergrad degree in biology, Thacker came home to Massachusetts and worked several lab jobs before undertaking HIV research at Harvard Medical School. But Thacker still saw a disconnect between scientific research and the patients that research was meant to help, so she took a graduate immunology class and an interior-design class to connect the disconnected.

Armed with real-life experience as a biotech research scientist, Thacker co-founded architecture firm TRIA last year to focus exclusively on lab design — a field that’s immensely hot in Cambridge’s life science-heavy real estate market. Thacker caught up with Business Journal Real Estate Editor Catherine Carlock.

You launched TRIA last September with managing partner Sherwood Butler. How has business been so far?

We’ve secured master service agreements with three major pharmaceutical companies and are considered a leading provider of real estate solutions to the life science community. We’ve won 64 projects, ranging in size from 500 square feet to 200,000 square feet, have tripled our revenue projections for one year and have grown to 18 employees. Most of our work is renovating interior spaces, and some ground-up work.

What’s a master service agreement?

It means you’re prequalified to bid on any job coming up, and if it’s under a certain project threshold they can award the project directly to you. It gives you a much better chance of getting work from them.

How do you see your background as a researcher helping shape your design work?

Many don’t really understand what it’s like to be a researcher in a lab space on a day-to-day basis. It can be hard to have a lab coat, gloves and goggles on all day. And people in clean rooms have to have full suits and booties and bonnets. It was always thought lab spaces should be on the interior of the building, with exteriors reserved for office or amenity space. But in reality, you can’t have food or coffee or water when you’re in the lab. You’re tied to the clock. … You could be in there for a solid eight hours and have no time to go to the bathroom or get anything to drink. So we really keep that in mind, to make amenity space closer. We’ve been really cognizant of understanding the scientists’ workflow and the experiments they’re running, really partnering with them to make them see what can make their lives easier. It’s really just taking into consideration what this person was doing in a lab, and giving them access to natural light, as long as it’s not hurting any of the science they’re doing.

Availability of lab space is incredibly tight in Cambridge. How does that impact your work?

Over 95 percent of the lab work in Kendall Square is rehabbing existing space, whether it’s office space being converted to lab space or lab space that hasn’t been updated in a long time. There are plenty of spaces like that in Cambridge that need to be renovated. That’s where there’s an opportunity for us to come in and take the labs to the next level and be more flexible and modular.

Do you see employers considering investing in lab real estate an important choice long-term?

The space is at a premium in Cambridge. There’s a lot of competition between large biotech and pharmaceutical clients, and also startups. They’re all trying to rally for some of the best talent coming out of MIT and Harvard, and there’s a standard that they have to come up to recruit.

What do you see as the connection between science and architecture?

They’re both focused on problem-solving and trouble-shooting — scientifically, at a microscopic level using instrumentation and qualitative data, versus architecturally, which provides more immediate gratification.

What’s your vision for TRIA’s growth?

With 18 people, we’re at the size where we can handle pretty much any project that comes our way. Long-term, our goal is to grow the company as much as we need to support all of our clients. Whether that’s holding steady at 18 individuals, or whether we need to revise that and go up to 30 or 50, we are willing to do whatever we need to do to support what our client needs.

Recently we were talking with one of our co-workers who had just attended a week-long intensive course for architects. The class instructor, a woman, had commented that for the first time in her 30 years of teaching the course, this class was comprised of just as many women as men.

This comment got us thinking. In a world where there are more and more female architects, what was it like being a female architect when the industry was mainly comprised of males? Then, it got us researching. Who were these important figures?

And, here are our findings. The following are some of the most influential women in architecture who paved the way for female architects and designers today:

• Eileen Gray – 1878-1976 – Irish furniture designer and architect whose interior design schemes are still considered modern today. (http://bit.ly/28NunpG)
• Norma Merrick Sklarek – 1928-2012 – First licensed African-American female architect. She went on to form a successful all-female architectural firm. (http://bit.ly/28MDXZy)
• Gaetana Aulenti – 1927-2012 – Italian architect who designed furniture, lighting, and renovated and restored museum spaces in Paris, Barcelona, San Francisco, and other well-known cities. (http://bit.ly/28KFvkd)
• Julia Morgan – 1872-1957 – Californian architect who designed more than 700 buildings. She was the first woman ever to be awarded the AIA Gold Medal. (http://bit.ly/NirU87)
• Zaha Hadid – 1950- 2016 – Iraqi-born British architect who was internationally known for her work. She was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004. (http://bit.ly/1kFKbqV)Find more famous female architects, here: http://bit.ly/28KHsg1.

One of the initial choices any start-up has to make is where to call home. For us, the decision was a no-brainer, and with support from our hard-working broker, Cushman & Wakefield, and helpful landlord, Jamestown, we were able to move into the Innovation and Design Building, located in the Innovation District in Boston’s Seaport area.

The 1.4 million square foot Innovation and Design Building, or IDB, houses a diverse mix of companies, ranging from start-ups to more recognized establishments. On the adjacent side of the building is the Boston Design Center, showcasing all the latest in design with artfully crafted showrooms filled with luxury product lines. The complex is truly the definition of where design meets innovation.

At TRIA, we understand the importance of combining quality design with innovative ideas. We take pride in the fact that we help science and technology organizations create the places that advance scientific discovery, furthering that innovative spirit.