Accelerating medicine on a global scale

As Juno Therapeutics evolved from a scientific pioneer into a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company, the need for a state-of-the-art facility capable of accommodating rapid growth, advancing scientific research, and recruiting and retaining top talent became critical.

Flad worked closely with Juno leaders to determine critical goals for their new workplace environment. The facility not only needed to encourage breakthrough science and discovery, it also needed to integrate key elements of the company's brand and culture into a built environment that supported the following attributes:

Growth and Change: facilitate mobility, scalability, cross-functional adjacencies, and agile workflows that bend to the needs of new science.

Fiscal and Spatial Fitness: deliver a high-performance, cost-effective design that enables Juno staff to work at their highest potential.

Regeneration: inspire purpose, courage, and optimism for staff, patients, partners, investors, and guests as they move through this environment while promoting wellness and enhancing life.

Culture and Communication: align spatial relationships and transparent experiences in a way that promotes connection and creativity, fosters quiet reflection and focus, and allows users to customize their workspace every hour they spend working towards their mission.

Outreach and Technology: deliver best-in-class technology to ease interaction, facilitate mobility and connection company-wide, and promote new discoveries that result in curing diseases.

During the initial visioning phase, Flad helped Juno properly forecast their growth in which their population was estimated to triple within 18 months, including the addition of an entirely new commercialization group. The design team developed an interchangeable wet and dry research model that can flexibly accommodate large volumes of new people as well as newly discovered research demands that evolve over time through clinical trials, FDA approval, and commercialization.

Flad spent considerable time investigating aspects of the design that could maintain interdisciplinary connections among employees, the foundation of Juno's culture and values. The subsequent design features offer holistic transparency with immediate visual access to display research results, scientific discoveries, and high-level research decisions without halting workflows. The interactive transition from workplace to wet and dry lab zones promotes an ease of working with others to answer questions, gain insights, solve problems, or redirect efforts without losing momentum.

The planning concept provides a flexible, open, and powerful work environment that guides users through a series of interwoven programs across each floor – it is the glue that holds these programs together. This part of the design celebrates not only the work but the people who make it possible.

The building also features a public floor and welcome center where people can connect, learn, be inspired, and contribute to Juno's mission. The entire floor can flex to accommodate a variety of audiences and host large public education forums, offering sweeping views of Puget Sound, Lake Union, and the Olympic Mountains. By opening the space to new audiences, Juno can capitalize on the visible nature their campus has within the framework of the city and share the immediate impact their work has on patients, the life science community, and global health.