Institutions, corporations and government agencies face an exciting, yet challenging, environment in today’s race to develop the new applications, products and technologies that will ensure improved global health and prosperity. The scientific and technological breakthroughs of the past decade offer glimpses of a future almost unimaginable even a decade before. At this moment, the only absolute in this explosion of discovery, is the escalation in rapid change.

Cannon Design is committed to advancing the scientific revolution through the planning and design of state-of-the-art research and development facilities. We work in partnership with our clients to address the functional issues of laboratory planning, to design change-responsive building systems, to meet expectations for energy performance, to ensure life safety and regulatory compliance. Our knowledge and experience have resulted in award-winning facilities that accommodate technological and programmatic change with ease, in an environment that fosters discovery and collaboration.

As a multidisciplinary firm, Cannon Design takes a full-service approach to the programming and planning of science and technology facilities, fully integrating our engineering and cost-estimating expertise into the process from the outset to develop programs that are both holistic in scope and grounded in reality. Through internal research initiatives and the Cannon Academy continuing-education curricula, we continually expand and draw upon our knowledge of state-of-the-art best practices. Three R&D Magazine Laboratory of the Year High Honors awards bestowed upon our projects in the recent past bear testimony to the thorough, precise, and forward-looking programming and planning processes we offer our clients.

Today’s teaching laboratories, often multidisciplinary, contain sophisticated mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems comparable to those of research laboratories. They are flexible, adaptable, spatially inviting, and aesthetically pleasing to attract and retain the best students and faculty. They are safe environments that facilitate the teaching of safety protocols to future scientists. And they host research conducted by undergraduate students and their professors – in areas that were the preserve of graduate study only a few years ago.

With multifaceted laboratory experience, Cannon Design is well equipped to design and deliver flexible teaching laboratories that will serve their institutions for decades to come. We design teaching laboratories that incorporate the latest technology, support advanced teaching methods, and foster learning in a sustainable and comfortable environment with natural lighting, excellent sightlines, and environmental safeguards.

As an international leader in the design of healthcare, university, and technology facilities, Cannon Design knows that biomedical and chemistry research facilities must emphasize robust infrastructure to ensure maximum flexibility and adaptability. As multidisciplinary and translational work continues to dissolve traditional boundaries among core disciplines and among basic, applied, and clinical research, biomedical and chemistry research facilities must employ planning strategies such as structural grids that can accommodate not only the full range of research and support spaces but also any type of clinical space – maximizing the capability to translate research results into real-life curative treatments. Reassignability of wet-lab spaces can be maximized through the use of adjacent flexible zones that can accommodate computational labs, postdoctoral offices, or tissue culture rooms. A variety of formal and informal gathering spaces further encourages collaborative science.

Laboratories for engineering, physics, photonics, advanced materials research, and similar operations require extraordinary structural stability as well as flexibility. A single building may need to provide both enhanced vibration dampening and isolation for nanotechnology operations and large, open, utility-intensive space to house bulky equipment. An efficient, safe facility for engineering-related research must provide necessary isolation and shielding for sensitive operations and equipment as well as provide for a potentially vast array of electrical services, gases, and other utilities, incorporating the optimal mix of characteristics to facilitate current and anticipated operations.

Whether pursuing research in food science, pharmaceuticals, plant science, advanced materials production, or environmental analysis, corporate and commercial science environments must be safe, flexible, and cost-effective. Planning must streamline workflow, ensure security of operations, balance first cost with operational expense, and establish a satisfactory overall image. At the same time, these facilities must be tailored to the owner’s corporate goals, processes, and culture to enhance the organization’s competitive position.

By listening carefully to clients’ precise requirements and aspirations, Cannon Design creates efficient, durable R&D environments that are attractive and spirited reflections of their corporate culture.

When R&D efforts have yielded a viable product, pilot labs and pilot plants represent the next step in delivering the new product to the public. Cannon Design engineers and architects facilitate this progress by working closely with owners, researchers, and technicians to develop successful pilot plants and laboratories. These facilities may include cGMP areas, clean rooms ranging from Class 100,000 to Class 100, aseptic spaces, and other facilities for product and pharmaceutical development, including the Phase I, Phase II, and even Phase III testing necessary for rapid product scale-up and rollout.

With an intimate knowledge of the regulatory community, including FDA, DEA, NIH, and others, Cannon Design helps companies safely navigate regulatory and validation processes and develop cost effective, flexible, expandable, secure, and stable pilot plants and laboratories that guarantee repeatable results.

Clinical laboratories must protect worker safety while accommodating rapid evolution in medical diagnostics and healthcare delivery strategies. New modes of testing and analysis, equipment, and rates of speed and accuracy will only accelerate this evolution, as will increases in point-of-care testing and automation of molecular-level diagnostics. A thorough understanding of the novel methods and protocols associated with these emerging paradigms will prove crucial in fully capitalizing upon the leaps in accuracy, volume, and turnaround time offered by the new technologies.