Masdar Institute’s laboratories have been designed in response to its vision for cutting edge research to be carried out here.

Mixing all five initial academic research programs within the same laboratory spaces represents the future for how research and scientific breakthroughs will occur - particularly in the realm of sustainable research programs where standard practice science types are only just emerging. The flexible ‘plug and play’ base build services and flexible casework / office pod systems allow for the building interiors to be easily reconfigured to suit changing needs of the research programs accommodated.

Services are all provided from overhead on a grid system - with a robust resin floor that allows for the laboratories to be used for wet lab research programs too. The labs have been designed such that they could be converted to biotech / bio science laboratories with minimal conversion costs, thus minimizing the environmental impact typically associated with building retrofitting to suit the ever changing needs of science and the researchers.

Outside, the laboratory façade has to mitigate between the requirements of the internal lab space and the high temperatures of the region. A key aspect of this is to have a building façade which is highly insulated and as air tight as possible. Any glass used in the elevation creates a weak link in the façade’s thermal performance and therefore needs to be located and utilized as effectively as possible.

Windows are used to introduce natural controlled daylight into the laboratories via clerestories, ensuring views out when either standing or sitting at a workbench. These windows throughout the laboratories are then shaded with a combination of horizontal and vertical fins eliminating high and low level angled sunlight.

The solid areas of the façade incorporate a silver frit pattern to the external surface and a thin aluminum mirror finish or “solar surface” to the inner that reflects light in a controlled way down to the streets below. Based on a modular solution, the prefabrication and repetition of the individual cladding units help to minimize waste during the fabrication process while also providing a greater degree of finish to minimize infiltration/exfiltration, which the Masdar sustainability parameters demand.