Life Sciences Company
Location
Shropshire
Oxfordshire
Greater Manchester
Project Team
Michael Laird Architects
Deliverables
- Brand Development
- Brand Experience
- Wayfinding
- Manufacture and Installation
A life sciences organisation, driven by a strong mission and set of values, recognised that its workplaces needed to do more than function well.
Predominantly laboratory-led, with offices, meeting rooms and breakout areas, the spaces weren’t yet clearly expressing who the organisation is or what it stands for. The gap wasn’t in strategy or intent, but in experience.
The first project was in Oxford, where we were asked to explore how the brand could be expressed through the physical environment in a way that felt appropriate within a scientific setting. What started as a single project grew into an ongoing collaboration, extending over several years and multiple sites.
Across each location, the focus remained consistent. There was no clear experience at key moments of arrival, movement and interaction, and little to connect one workplace to the next. The challenge was to evolve each environment over time, maintaining consistency while allowing every space to respond to the specific scientific work taking place within it.
Each workplace was approached as a fresh opportunity to interpret the science it housed. We paid close attention to the nature of the work, the tools used, the processes followed and the culture that surrounds them, allowing each environment to develop its own character while still belonging to a wider, recognisable whole.
Processes such as chromatography, data visualisation and molecular analysis informed the brand experience within each space. Iconography, patterns, lighting rhythms and material choices take cues from how scientific information is generated and read.
In several locations, decommissioned or adapted laboratory equipment was transformed into large-scale wall installations, turning tools of investigation into expressive, site-specific moments that encourage curiosity and discussion.
The result is an experience that feels unmistakably scientific without feeling clinical. Precise yet expressive. Intellectually engaging, but human at its core. Many of the most rewarding details are subtle, revealing themselves over time to those who work within the spaces every day.
Over time, this work has shaped how the organisation is experienced, both by visitors encountering the science for the first time and by teams working within it every day. The impact is felt through credibility, relevance and consistency, carried across each site without repetition or standardisation.
From the moment of arrival, the workplaces signal confidence and precision. For visitors, the experience establishes scientific capability and intent. For those who work there, the same cues unfold more gradually, building a sense of belonging through a shared purpose reinforced day to day.
Each site reflects the particular scientific work taking place within it. Equipment-led installations, spatial cues and tailored narratives create environments that feel meaningful to the teams who use them, building pride, ownership and a stronger connection to the work.
Delivered over several years and locations, each workplace responds directly to the science within it rather than conforming to a fixed template. Together, the environments form a recognisable whole, different by design, yet connected through a shared sense of identity and continuity over time.
