While there, he engaged Bryden Wood and together they developed the Front End Factory, a collaborative endeavour to explore how to turn purpose and strategy into the right projects – which paved the way for Design to Value.
This will often accelerate the project, which is particularly important in the life science industry, and they will be more familiar with labs and specialist standards that can be more forgiving (e.g.Of course, there are a wide range of other health, safety, and environmental regulations to incorporate, as well as the possibility of insurance or employer standards and recommendations that can, for example, dictate sprinklers even when this isn’t a legal necessity.. 9.
Façades & finishes..Existing office façades and finishes may be unsuitable for more stringent lab conditions.. For most office to lab conversions façades will simply require locking of openable windows and general making good.However, for Containment Level 3 (or BSL3) labs and above, cleanrooms, environments requiring exceptionally tight tolerances, and other more onerous requirements, façades can be quite problematic.
Airtightness is a particular challenge that can make a perfectly adequate office facade ill-suited for lab use, or may result in suppliers unwilling to guarantee lab performance, or disputes during commissioning.In such cases, rather than re-clad the building (which defeats most of the point of a conversion) a possible solution is a ‘box in a box’ lab fit-out, though this will be more expensive and will reduce net usable space..
Furthermore, given how much energy labs consume compared to an office it may be sensible to improve the performance of an older façade, which will, of course, add cost and programme, and there can be other issues around cladding, for example, some systems and materials used in offices are not accepted by life science businesses and insurers for fire safety and loss prevention reasons.. Office finishes are unlikely to be suitable for lab use, and it is almost always best to complete a full strip-out of the office at the start of a project.
This will simplify design and construction in the long-run, and will often expose hidden defects or complications (see below.)Matching this creativity with open-minded expert knowledge can be very powerful..
Above all it means jointly resisting, as long as is responsibly possible, narrowing to a defined solution and only then when it is very clear it matches up to the fundamental purpose and the highest aspirations.In the discomfort of this process, new ideas will shoot and grow..
Professor John Dyson spent more than 25 years at GlaxoSmithKline, eventually ending his career as VP, Head of Capital Strategy and Design, where he focussed on developing a long-term strategic approach to asset management..While there, he engaged Bryden Wood and together they developed the Front End Factory, a collaborative endeavour to explore how to turn purpose and strategy into the right projects – which paved the way for Design to Value.