Project Data:

Completion Date:     6/21/2023

Square Footage:      100000

Building Use:           Manufacturing, Labs, and Office

Project Description:

The project site consists of five joined lots in an industrial zone with four existing buildings. The project was executed in two major phases of construction that began with a campus masterplan effort. The first phase kept and completely remodeled the interior of two existing buildings. Phase-2 required the two remaining buildings to be torn down to construct a new state of the art building housing full-scale commercial operation for both product and manufacturing process development, commercial cell therapy production, and QC laboratories. Common and work spaces include flexible conference areas, private offices, central break room, and outdoor rooftop event space.

The project benefitted from an energy model developed early on in the project to optimize the curtainwall design and use of insulation in the hot San Fernando Valley. Interior and exterior lighting loads were reduced via LED fixtures and occupancy sensors. Low flow fixtures are used for lavatories, urinals, and water closets in all instances. The building includes electric vehicle parking, but also the infrastructure to expand this at the existing parking areas as well as Photovoltaics install capacity along 20% of the rooftop. LID (Low Impact Development) water catchment is located along the remaining available site north of the building and filters water through a series of plantings and drainage layers. This water, as well as collected rooftop water is captured in a below-grade cistern, which in turn feeds the irrigation system to plantings surrounding the buildings.

The design team worked closely with the client during early site selection and together decided from the begging that the project would not be built on a “Greenfield” site. Instead the team picked a site that lent itself to reusing some of the existing buildings in order to extend their useful life. The westerly most two buildings were reused as part of the phased approach. The remaining portion of the site received a new two-story building to accommodate anticipated cell therapy commercial product manufacturing. The site selection included many benefits and challenges. For example some of the benefits included a close adjacency to an existing public transportation corridor adjacent to the site. The site is well served by existing bike lanes, and public amenities such as eateries and other services within walking distance. Some of the benefits that also presented challenges included existing adjacent apartments and high density residential buildings. Noise concerns were very important and the project planned for the acoustical wellbeing of the residential neighborhoods to the south via a two-fold approach of screened equipment enclosures and baffled chiller/cooling tower sound attenuation. The project provided showers and bicycle storage in long-term and short-term storage lockers, and the buildings are on a street with a major separated bikeway. Commuters are also able to tap into public transit infrastructure at the Rapid Bus Transit Hub across the street. This proximity, along with various restaurants and shops in the neighborhood provides a connection to the greater surroundings.

Framework for Design Excellence

Design for Water:
Whole Site Approach
LID (Low Impact Development) water catchment is located along the entire 450’ wide northern exposure of the site and filters water through a series of plantings and drainage layers. All rainwater on site including rooftop water, is filtered and captured in a below-grade cistern with 4,200 CF capacity, which in turn feeds the irrigation system to plantings surrounding the buildings. Scuppers from the existing buildings run through a series of leaders which also terminate at the cistern. The building is raised 4’ above grade to mitigate moisture intrusion and account for a liquefaction soil zone. Because of this, long expanses of hardscape surfaces had to be carefully graded to drain back to the LID filtering bed. Since California can go through long dry periods, the plants used are native varieties which are drought-tolerant and hardy to the region. Inside the building, low flow fixtures are used for lavatories, urinals, and water closets in all instances. Process water equipment was selected with efficiency in mind, and drainage installed to separate process wastewater from greywater which may be re-claimed.

Design for Well-being:
Manufacturing With A Purpose
The new Cell Therapy Manufacturing Facility produces TIL (tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes) therapies focused on life changing cancer treatments. Located on a 5-acre site in Los Angeles, California, this cutting-edge facility includes a 70,000 SF manufacturing building. The facility design emphasized transparency and the efficient connection of employees between the labs and production spaces in the manufacturing facility with the workstations and services of the office building.

Rooftop Amenities
North facing Curtainwall along the entire 2nd floor wall facing the rooftop provides views to the surrounding mountains and natural indirect daylight throughout. This curtainwall also opens directly to exterior rooftop employee event space, where furniture and seating provide a large seating capacity. Within the 2nd floor there are large presentation rooms, a large kitchen, and flexible breakout conference rooms to house international visits of 100+ employees.


Design for Change:
Two Parts, One Goal
The unique cancer treatment therapies required a first of its kind facility. The therapy and facility type is innovative in its function and design yet at the same time is designed to allow for change. The facility can adapt to modifications needed for its therapy by allowing internal expansion of individual manufacturing suites constructed of prefabricated clean room walls and walkable ceiling panels. As part of their process: blood must be taken from a patient, cryopreserved, shipped to a manufacturing facility, reprogrammed, and manufactured in the clean room suites, and then shipped back for infusion into the patient. All of this must be done in the shortest time possible to aid in the patient’s recovery, so efficiencies within the building’s movement patterns are key. To enable the process, employees and technical support personnel move from the existing building to the labs and clean rooms throughout the day while materials flow from the cGMP Warehouse into the manufacturing suites. These two resources meet in the central spine which has the capability to expand within the existing shell of the building in the future to increase production throughput.

Connection to Environment
Beyond the building’s usable rooftop, there are multiple areas around the building that can foster employee breaks outdoors. As you lead up to the building’s main entry from the south there is a bamboo lined walkway with Corten steel planters that turn into benches. Low plantings and alternating exposed aggregate tiles lead you toward the large entry expanse which is the grand double-height lobby. Skirting the north and west sides of the buildings are the heavily planted and tree-lined LID planter, with low wall height perfect for use as a sitting ledge. In-ground lighting provides an ambient pathway at night as production runs around the clock.

Design for Discovery:
A Highly Specialized Facility
The commercial cGMP cell therapy manufacturing building is comprised of QC labs, a GMP warehouse and production clean rooms containing state of the art process utilities and equipment. Bright interior finishes and transparency display the cleanliness of the facility to all who walk through the adjacent corridors. Construction was streamlined, and on-site waste reduced using prefabricated wall and ceiling panels composed of a mix of glazed and powered panels that are quick to assemble and provide flexibility for everchanging production processes. The manufacturing facility cleanrooms are served from a network of utilities above which is supported by a structural system, separate from the structure of the building. These spaces are accessed via a walkable ceiling where electrical and HVAC needs are connected into the manufacturing suites below with ultimate flexibility for changes in products and workflow. Specified paths and equipment lifts allow for safe movement and hoisting of large materials over the sensitive cleanroom spaces below.


Design for Economy
Future Proofing for Economy and Success
Independent production suites (cleanrooms) were designed to be flexible and to allow for the expansion of multiproduct production with very minimal modifications. The production suites were designed and constructed using prefabricated clean room walls and walkable ceiling panels. This approach while not new to the industry was used very successfully to minimize on site waste and time required to erect and install. To make the most of economy of scale construction the manufacturing and warehousing building were designed and constructed to allow for future expansion within the shell of the building thereby eliminating the need for a future shell construction and only requiring minimal future fit outs. The main mechanical and utilities were also designed to be flexible and expandable with minimal additional infrastructure required. The project team understood and emphasized at the project’s onset that clinical therapies are ever-changing the terrain when it comes to novel cancer treatments and the incredible success in the therapy almost guarantees that this therapy will inevitable do away with other destructive forms of cancer treatments. The potential success of the therapy and the many know variables in future manufacturing requirements required that the project be designed and built with future proofing and expandability in mind. Independent HVAC systems, easily replaceable HEPA filtering, cleanable material assemblies, and a suite separation strategy allow individual spaces to operate or shut down for cleaning or alterations. The facility was designed to include 10,000 SF of shell space for future expansion that would increase manufacturing production capacity by 50% while maintaining an operating facility.

Firm Name:              Joseph Donahue

Completion Date:     6/21/2023

Square Footage:      100000

Building Use:           Manufacturing, Labs, and Office

Location:                 Tarzana, CA

Design Architect:
EwingCole

Associate Architect or Firm:
Architects: EwingCole

Landscape Architect:
Landscape Architect: SQLA

Owner / Developer:
Name of Owner: Instil Bio

Engineer:
Structural Engineer: EwingCole

MEP Engineers: EwingCole

Civil Engineer: KPFF

Acoustical Engineer: Newson Brown Acoustics

General Contractor:
General Contractor: Turner Construction Company

Consultant:

Photographer:
Photographer: RMA Architectural Photography