Cloning
To achieve a larger floor plate, labs can be multiplied through cloning. The first step involves repeating individual lab and office units within one building floor. This process continues until the maximum reasonable corridor length is reached, at which point floors are stacked to form a simple building block. Entire building blocks, including labs, offices, and core spaces, can then be cloned and connected to each other. Cloning follows various patterns, such as central daisy or pinwheel, linear copy-paste, or mirror.
The pattern of cloning and connection must align with the organizational structure of educational or research institutions and facilitate optimal building systems operation.
Biomedicum: Pinwheel
Biomedicum features four identical lab and office buildings arranged in a pinwheel formation, centered on an enclosed atrium. Each Lab Quarter constitutes a self-contained block of lab, lab support, and office space situated on one floor of each of the four blocks. The gallery space between the cloned floors connects the Lab Quarters and offers areas for informal collaboration. It's important to note that the pinwheel arrangement is closed, meaning that additional cloned blocks cannot be added within the same pattern.
HCI: Copy-Paste
Each of the five lab Fingers is flanked by two cores housing stairs, lifts, and toilets. The lab and office areas are separated by a corridor, with service shafts lining the lab side to vertically distribute building and lab services, eliminating the need for horizontal distribution outside the labs.
Within each lab module, write-up zones are positioned along the facade, while lab support spaces are situated towards the corridor.
At the southwest end of each finger, seminar spaces can be converted into labs if needed. The Fingers connect to the Spine via the north core, and an additional egress stair is placed in the middle of each lab finger.
The HCI morphology allows for theoretical expansion by adding cloned fingers. The building initially comprised only the "head" and three lab Fingers in its first phase. Subsequently, two more identical, seamlessly integrated Fingers were added several years later.
Clark: Mirror
Clark Center features two nearly identical lab wings that are cloned and mirrored around an outdoor court. The fact that one wing ended up shorter than the other likely has both programmatic and compositional reasons. Despite this difference, the sizing of core elements remains identical and could theoretically support equal amounts of lab space.