30 architectural monuments to R&D

Design trends

• Sustainability and biophilic design: From the lush Amazon Spheres to Masdar’s solar-powered campus, green roofs, living walls, many features make use of daylight. The Spheres facility is an also example of a longstanding trend in modernist architecture — merging the indoors and outdoors. For instance, within Amazon Spheres glass orbs filled with more than 40,000 plants sourced from cloud forest ecosystems. A different kind of immersive, sustainability-driven design appears at the Salk Institute near San Diego, where Louis Kahn’s minimalist concrete forms and tranquil courtyard pay homage to a more timeless yet equally nature-integrated aesthetic.
• Collaborative spaces: Love them or hate them, open-floor plans are the new normal. The flowing interiors at the AstraZeneca Discovery Centre or MIT Media Lab remove physical barriers between teams and disciplines, fostering a dynamic exchange of ideas. Movable walls, shared lounges, and communal “collision zones” are designed to encourage impromptu discussions and faster problem-solving. For instance, Apple Park’s iconic ring-shaped building—2.8 million square feet of it—encircles an open environment meant to draw people together, not scatter them into siloed corners.
• Integration of public and private areas: The Novartis Campus, which invites the community into green plazas, cultural exhibitions, and cafés. This approach transforms the research complex into a kind of civic landmark, one that engages with the broader community rather than shutting it out.
• Flexibility for future adaptation: Caltech’s Cahill Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics and Eli Lilly’s Innovation Centers are notable examples of how thoughtfully planned design can respond to the evolving landscape of research. In these facilities, labs and workspaces aren’t locked into a single configuration; instead, modular infrastructure allows teams to reconfigure benches, offices, and specialized equipment stations with relative ease.