Tall & Urban News

Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) has filed plans for a 23-story laboratory and office building on the edge of London's Canary Wharf neighborhood. 

The 76,500-square-meter commercial health and life sciences building is concepted as a "vertical campus" for Canary Wharf Group and Kadans Science Partners. The new facility faces North Quay opposite Foster + Partners’ Elizabeth Line station.

Details in the application include that the lab/office is phase one of a larger transformation of a 3.5-hectare plot along the water into a campus for the health and life sciences. The detail application for the "stacked" block marks the first phase of the wider transformation of the 3.5-hectare-waterside plot into a campus for health and life sciences. The undeveloped site has outline permission for 325,000 square meters of laboratory and affiliated space.

Up to 60 percent of the proposed building will be given over to laboratories, the exterior of which will be clad in a graphite aluminum and terracotta to present a warm tonality. The project's mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering (MEP) strategy will allow labs on every floor. Floor plates have been designed to accommodate a range of tenant sizes and sectors and to give flexibility for businesses to grow and take up more space. 

Community space, a sky lounge and a terrace will be provided for tenants and visitors.

The proposed high-rise also incorporates clinical and chemical waste facilities, multiple goods-lifts with oxygen monitors, freezer farms and specialized receiving and storage areas for hazardous, clinical and chemical goods. 

For more on this story, go to Architects' Journal.