Oxford’s giant new lab building has a secret hidden in its facade

As researchers approach the front doors of Oxford’s new Life and Mind Building (LaMB), they’re greeted with a towering concrete facade, rendered with a rippling surface effect. What first appears to be a mere stylistic choice actually encodes something more special: Each of the concrete’s waves and dips is derived from the brain scan of an Oxford researcher. 

Designed by the architecture firm NBBJ, the LaMB is a massive, 269,000-square-foot space that brings together two departments: experimental psychology, which studies the human brain and how it operates; and biology, which encompasses both zoology (animal studies) and plant sciences. When it opened last October after four years of construction, it became the largest facility on the historic university’s campus. 

The LaMB’s facade is visually striking, but it also embodies a few clever ways that NBBJ is reimagining what a university lab building can be. The structure is built to account for the natural path of the sun, capture energy using solar panels, and use advanced cladding technology to lessen its environmental impact. In short, it’s a vision of a lab that’s better for both its staffers and the planet.

A brain wave hidden in plain sight

When visitors look up at the LaMB, they’re literally observing someone’s positive thought—even if they don’t know it.

Darius Umrigar, a principal architect at NBBJ and the lead project designer of LaMB, says one of his team’s main priorities was to design with longevity in mind, given that Oxford itself is nearly 1,000 years old. That meant choosing durable materials (concrete, stone, and metal) to make up the facade. At the same time, they wanted to ensure that the building would have aesthetic interest and fit within the existing campus.

The solution would need to be a design that works with the building’s thick concrete exterior and can withstand the environment for decades.

“During that process, we talked to the head of experimental psychology,” Umrigar says. “They do a lot of brain scanning, both voluntarily and in terms of their approach to research and treatment. When we were considering the design, we were looking at how it would weather well and maintain its beauty without needing to be maintained.”

They wanted a texture for the building’s cladding that wasn’t just “flat concrete,” he adds. Through this discussion, one student volunteered her own brain scan to serve as the basis of a potential decorative feature.

That student was Sage Boettcher, who’s now a career development research fellow in the department of experimental psychology. A scan of her brain was taken while she actively envisioned the future of the LaMB lab. From there, the NBBJ team isolated a two-second blip of the recording, resulting in a distinct sinusoidal wave pattern of dips and curves. Those rippling gestures were then carved into various stone slabs, which appear at intervals across the building’s exterior.

“What we try to do with NBBJ is to not leave a legacy that dates the building, but look at using materials in the truest form and balance that with the budget we’ve got to work with,” Umrigar says. “I think the harmony of simple, quality materials that will weather well and stand the test of time is certainly the key to success.”

Labs are a major energy suck—the LaMB uses clever design to combat that

The LaMB’s facade is designed to be beautiful, but it also serves a greater purpose for the environment.

Traditionally, labs are a major energy suck. According to a 2019 study, the combined emissions of hospitals and labs account for 4.4% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions. (For context, the study found that labs at Harvard accounted for nearly 44% of the university’s energy use, yet only 20% of its total space.)

According to the engineering consultancy Hoare Lea, which worked with NBBJ on the LaMB, labs are typically expected to consume three to five times as much energy as a traditional office. Some estimates put that figure even higher, at around a factor of 10.

The main reason labs drain so much energy is their intense climate control demands. Maintaining the integrity of the many experiments that take place every day means labs need 24/7 systems keeping their air filtered, moving at the correct volume, and tuned to specific humidity and temperature settings. All of these demands equal major energy inputs—and, ultimately, high operational costs. 

One of the biggest ways that lab buildings can conserve energy, Umrigar says, is by simply preventing air from leaking out. For the NBBJ team, that meant creating an airtight cladding system. The final design includes an outer layer of precast concrete panels, a thick internal layer of thermal insulation, triple-glazed windows, and precision detailing to ensure that every nook and cranny is sealed against the outside world. 

The LaMB is also carefully situated to maximize natural sunlight. A central atrium cutout allows in soft daylight without overheating the building, while harsher light is captured via a series of roof-mounted solar panels. Inside, air source heat pumps and adaptive ventilation (which uses special sensors to determine how and when to circulate air) cut down even further on wasted energy. In all, these clever design tactics mean that the LaMB emits about 40% less carbon than it would at baseline.

“It’s a great achievement for a very large lab building, and certainly probably pushing the boundaries of what the university has been able to do for science buildings of this type in the past,” Umrigar says. “It sets a new benchmark, I would say, not only for Oxford, but for many other universities looking to develop a research facility.”

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