Hi, Justin, how are you doing?

 

Very well. Thank you very much for speaking with me today.

 

So, I'm interested in your background, as a chemist-turned-person-who-works-for-an-architect-firm. How did that all come about? I think you're even published with a Nobel Laureate. Is that right?

 

That is correct. One of my first careers in life was a chemistry researcher, which I did for about four to five years at Rice University in the University of Kansas, where I specialized in single-wall Carbon Nanotube research.  I did some research and co-published a paper with Professor Richard Smalley, who won the 1996 Nobel Prize for C60, which is the formation of carbon nanotubes.

 

So what's the journey from there to working at Gensler's?

 

People ask this question all the time, and if you actually think about it, chemistry is a set of rules of how different elements go together to create structures. So if you actually take that base concept, that is very much at the microscopic, or nano scale. Architecture and design is that at the human level. So how do you actually take these different variables and different components and understand, how they're reacting and interacting with each other, to create great environments for people in society to use?

 

If we're talking definitions, you work in what's broadly called Life Sciences. Would you like to unpack that a little for people who want to know more about what that precisely means in this context?

 

Yeah. So, sciences, there's a wide range of type of science fields. And one of the hottest markets right now that is being discussed in the UK market is around Life Sciences. That's primarily around three sub-industries. There's biotechnology, which is using biological solutions to help produce medicines. There's pharmaceuticals, which is generally the basis of chemical compounds used to make medicines. And then there's diagnostics, which is how we actually track and understand and test for these different diseases for the medical research. 

Those are the three primary categories. But under that, there's a lot of different subcategories and nuances. A lot of people might be hearing about conversations with cell and gene therapies, which is a very hot micro market, focused around personalized medicine. There's also a new emerging one called synthetic biology, which is the fastest growing venture capitalist-funded sector of life sciences, which is using AI and machine learning and biological automate for high throughput automation to discover new elements and new solutions to some of the world's greatest problems - whether it is how to reduce single-use plastics, or what is the best viral vector to help create a vaccine for COVID?

 

Is this broadly a boom area in the UK? And can you place us within the world markets? I presume we're dwarfed by the US, for example.

 

It's an interesting one to compare.  UNESCO does pull statistics on government spending on R&D every year. Well, that's a broad number that encompasses Life Sciences, but other fields of research that we have almost doubled from 2.3 trillion US dollars in 2020, to what is being estimated at 4.5 trillion US dollars by 2030.

 

We being the UK?

 

Sorry, sorry. Thank you; that's globally. The world's going to see a doubling in R&D expenditure. And every country's R&D expenditure is being benchmarked by their GDP output. So the UK right now is around 1.5% of GDP. And the government announcement last week has stated that they wanted to increase that to 2.4% of our GDP by 2025, which is an increase of an additional $7 billion. So that number of 2.4% is generally more on par with your countries like the US and China. But it's still below that of countries like Switzerland and Korea, which are seen as highly innovative in R&D output countries.

 

Do you have any examples of the national agenda to support all of this? Schemes in the national picture that support that argument?

 

Yes - in 2018, we completed the Illumina center in Grants Park in Cambridge.  Illumina is the world's largest genome sequencing company, and they played a very big role in the UK's 100,000 genome project, which completed in the December of 2018, focusing on genetic makeup of people with rare diseases. And this is a landmark piece of research that UK was forging the global stage on, on being able to use data to help prevent and treat rare diseases.

 

It's in Cambridge and it's a sort of landscape led scheme, a campus, right?

 

Yes. The building is 175,000 square feet, but it's a community-based building, to both bring together physical bench researchers with the bioinformatics teams in an inside and outside environment that includes a 40,000 square foot executive fitness centre on the park, to really focus on the ideas of cross-collaboration and knowledge sharing, both internally within Illumina, but also with scientists on the research park, which include Medimmune, AstraZeneca, Pfizer and Gilead.

 

And in London, what's the London picture?

 

The London picture is forming. The struggle the UK market has compared to something like the US is lack of data and transparency around the R&D real estate. Right now, it is estimated that there's only 5 million square feet of R&D laboratory space in the Golden Triangle for scientific growth, and for companies to utilize. To compare that to scale, Boston is half the population of the Golden Triangle, but has five times the amount of R&D space at roughly 25 million square feet. So we think that there is a very high potential for this growth market in London. And in the Golden Triangle. The problem is, there isn't room and space for companies to spin out of academic universities, and really work on commercializing the IP that's coming from the great institutions that we have here in London, like Imperial, UCL, and Kings.

 

In a design sense, what are the main changes that have come about in life sciences buildings over the last year or so? And what do you foresee coming ahead in those design changes, if there are any?

 

I might maybe take that a little more than just a year range to a five-year range. COVID and the pandemic has really got scientists to think differently about how they work. Those scientists were always considered critical workers; they always had to go to labs to produce results. But instead of having spent five days in the labs, some have been able to structure their time to the extent three or four days in the lab. But going forward, scientists very much say they want to go into a physical workplace environment. So it seems to be a recession-proof real estate play. But with that, your developers and landlords have to realize the needs and requirements for science companies are changing. The amount of air changes required to create a safe working lab environment has roughly halved in size over the past 10 to 15 years, which makes it a lot more available, or easily available, to convert commercial office buildings into laboratory environments. But also, the rise of bio-informatics is driving the percentage of lab space down and then increasing the amount of office space, which a lot of people in the UK know how to build and design very well.

 

So it's pretty much a boom area, then? Would you characterize it like that?

 

For us to hit the 24% of GDP, it is estimated that there should be a 50% growth in the scientific workforce. And that equates to 250,000 jobs. And on average, in R&D facilities, there's between 200-250 square foot per person; that's 15 million square feet of space that needs to be built and developed to meet our GDP goals. So, while 250,000 jobs is a great boom, the larger GDP value output of trying to build about 50 million square feet, or even half that, 25 million square feet, will create, I think, a very big boom economy for the next 10 to 20 years. And we're probably at the very early cycle of that of year one, year two, so I'm hoping to see some very fruitful outputs of our society over the next decade or two.

 

And sorry, very last question. Presumably then, given the space requirements, it's going to be a national story, rather than cramming them inside the M25? So it's more of a national picture story, is it, this growth?

 

The UK Government is looking at using sciences to level up the economy. But we are needing to go into an acceleration phase to support that leveling up. And I see that that acceleration phase will have a strong focus with inside the M25 and the Golden Triangle, because of the capital and academic partnerships that already exist. But you know, longer term, the 10-to-20-year range is where I see more of the national agenda leveling up where the first, next three to 10 years, I see a significant focus within the M25 and Golden Triangle.

 

Oh, that's good news for London and some fascinating insights. Magic. Thanks! 

 

Thank you very much. Bye!