Side Notes: The Human Element in High-Tech Facilities

In the debut episode of Side Notes, a bite-sized version of Side of Design, host Matt Gerstner sits down with Nate Roisen, BWBR’s Science + Technology Practice Leader, to explore the evolving world of design and innovation in the market. In just under 15 minutes, they cover what excites Nate about the current landscape, the biggest challenges clients face, and what makes designing in this field so rewarding.

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Episode Transcript

Matt Gerstner (00:00):
Welcome to Side Notes, the bite-sized version of
Side of Design.
In 15 minutes or less, we'llexplore one idea, one insight or
one conversation worth hearing.
Let's get to it.
Welcome to our first episode ofSide Notes, the bite-sized
version of Side of Design.
I'm your host, Matt Gerstner.
Joining me today is Nate Roizen, Principal and Science and
Technology Practice Leader withBWBR, and we're going to take a

(00:23):
closer look at the science andtechnology market today.
Nate, thanks for making time tobe here Terrific to be here.
Thanks, Matt.
All right, we're just going toget right into it.
So, Nate, what are you mostexcited about in the science and
technology market today?

Nate Roisen (00:37):
Well, I think we have clients that are doing big
things and over the course ofthe last four or five years, I
mean projects have a gestationperiod right where, where you're
in the room when it's beingconceived of.
There's design effort, there'scost, there's construction.
We have some great projectsthat are going to be occupied at
the end of this year oh,fantastic and that's that's

(01:00):
something that's just reallyexciting at this point.
So, thinking about our work withthe state lab up in North
Dakota, a few others that mightbe slightly more confidential,
but all of these are greatopportunities both for us to
really see our design ideas cometogether, have lessons learned
and take advantage ofconversations with the client

(01:22):
about oh, this could have beendone a little bit better, we
could have tweaked that overhere.
And, unlike some otherprofessions, we have the
privilege of actually having aphysical thing in the world that
is the sum of our work and werarely get the opportunity to

(01:43):
just sit back and appreciatethat.
But this coming year is goingto For us to really celebrate
some of those accomplishmentsover the last five years.
Well, that's fantastic.

(02:11):
It sounds like a great, greatlot of the factories that we
work on aren't extremely laborintensive.

Matt Gerstner (02:18):
Okay.

Nate Roisen (02:19):
But they do require people to operate Right right
and the jobs within them arereally highly skilled,
especially when you're talkingabout computer chip fabrication
or pharmaceutical orpharmaceutical.
Finding the people to actuallydo the work of assembling
computer chips, making drugs,making medical devices, is

(02:39):
something that all of ourclients really struggle with.
The workforce shortages thatyou read about are in the
newspaper or online are verymuch.
They're very much on the frontline of that.
Yeah, are very much.
They're very much on the frontline of that.
And so helping our clientsthrough good design.

(03:00):
Creating spaces that people wantto work in is something that I
see as a really important andmaybe somewhat underrated aspect
of the work that we do A lot of.
It's very functional.
The room needs to be this big.
We need to meet building codes.
It needs to have certainadjacencies.
It needs to have certainequipment in it, but does a
person actually want to work inthere, and is the room set up in

(03:21):
such a way that, when a personis spending eight, ten hours a
day for years and years in thatroom, they're giving their best
all the time?
There are certain things thatthe space can do that actually
make their lives a little bitbetter, and sometimes it's not
the space that they're actuallyworking in, but it's the space
outside the productionenvironment.

(03:42):
What does the break room looklike?
Do you have good access todaylight in office areas if
you're doing your documentationoutside of a production area?
Yeah, all of these are, youknow, spaces that sometimes
don't attract all the attentionas you're conceiving of a
project, because it's the spacesthat are going to make you the

(04:02):
money that attract the mostattention, right?
Really matter, though, to thefinished example or the finished
experience of the people whoare working there.

Matt Gerstner (04:13):
I can completely see that.
I mean it's all about employeequality of life at work still,
and I can see how supportingthat through the built
environment can definitely helpthem retain their employees or
even find employees that want tobe there.

Nate Roisen (04:30):
Yeah, I mean we're spoiled.
We have a beautiful officespace with a nice view and great
access to daylight, andsometimes it's easy to forget
just how important that is whenyou're not the one experiencing
a room that might feel a littlebit more like a cave, or might

(04:50):
be really dated, or theceiling's really low, or the air
conditioner or the HVAC systemisn't up to snuff and it feels
stuffy or clammy.
All these different thingsreally matter, and it's fun to
be able to bring that kind ofelevated experience to different

(05:10):
project types where the peoplemight be used to working in
something that's a lot lesshuman scale Fantastic.

Matt Gerstner (05:19):
That is a great way to support the client.
So when you're thinking aboutthese things right now, you're
thinking about your market.
What do you love aboutdesigning for this specific
market?

Nate Roisen (05:31):
Well, so it's funny , I hate puzzles.
Okay, like actual puzzles.
Yeah, you know, you lay athousand pieces on the table,
can't do them, my brain doesn'twork that way.

Matt Gerstner (05:45):
Really Okay.

Nate Roisen (05:46):
Okay, but I love designing science and tech
projects, yeah, which are, in alot of ways, like a puzzle.
There's different parts andpieces that need to fit together
in the correct way.
There's certain adjacenciesthat you need, there's certain
requirements dictated bybuilding codes, some dictated by
a client, some dictated by byum, uh, uh, like, like

(06:10):
regulators, fda, things likethis, and yet, um, you lay those
pieces out.
It's really fun to put themtogether.

Matt Gerstner (06:20):
And.

Nate Roisen (06:21):
I never quite understood why.
Why a puzzle of a beautifulmountain scenery?
uh, is is not something I enjoy,but the puzzle of of putting a
building together and figuringout how, how it works on the
site, how how it uh, how itfunctions with material and
people moving through it in inways that make sense is is just

(06:41):
a challenge that never gets old.
Yeah and um, I I think uh, alot of our projects in in, you
know, any of the markets we workin do have that aspect to it.
But I think the science andtechnology world has a unique
depth to the different types ofthings you have to solve.

Matt Gerstner (06:59):
Fantastic.

Nate Roisen (07:00):
And it's always a new challenge for every client,
right, right.
And the other thing is that thethings that our clients do in
these buildings, it's like magic.
Things that our clients do inthese buildings, it's like magic
.
I mean, it is when you learnabout what it takes to make
computer chips, when you learnabout the testing processes that
a sample of soil or water goesthrough to find out if it has

(07:25):
PFAS contamination.
Oh yeah, and you know, we getthis like little bit of a window

(07:50):
, a little bit on the shoulderof the people who actually do
this incredibly challenging,sophisticated and ultimately
like world-changing work.
And it's amazing just to.

(08:12):
I'm talking with them andthey're talking about the number
of microns in differentwavelengths that they're working
with and the design of acomputer chip or something.
But it's also like that's howthe world works Right,
everybody's got their thing, andwhen our experience complements
each other, they know computerchips but we know buildings

(08:34):
Right, and when we work togetherwe can make a really great
building for assembling computerchips.

Matt Gerstner (08:40):
That's very cool.

Nate Roisen (08:41):
It's a fun place in the world to be, a really fun
place to spend one's career.
A place in the world to be areally fun place to spend, uh,
to spend one's career.

Matt Gerstner (08:58):
Very cool, very cool.
And beyond all of that, whatinspires you?
Where do?

Nate Roisen (09:00):
you find inspiration to do this work.
Well, I mean it's, it'sinteresting, right?
I mean it's one time I I uhhappened to be, uh at a place
with my dad, um, dad, and didn'trealize that it would have a
view of one of my projects.
Oh really, I said Dad, look upon the hill there, that's my
project.

(09:20):
Yeah, and it happened to be thebackside of a kind of
nondescript building.
Okay, and he looked at it and hewent oh, and the thing that I
could tell was going through hishead was like was like how much
money did this guy spend onarchitecture school?

Matt Gerstner (09:35):
Yeah.

Nate Roisen (09:37):
But you know it's, it's really something the
sophistication of, of thebuildings that we work on, are
might.
They might have nondescriptexterior sometimes, but you
crack them open and there's alot going on in there that
really makes you know, reallycreate intellectual challenge.

(09:59):
And so when we can, you know,have our voice as part of the
design of something like that,it's just fun.
It's interesting, if we canmake it a little bit better.

Matt Gerstner (10:12):
Oh, even better, Even better yeah.

Nate Roisen (10:14):
If we can be the you know walk around on the job
site and kind of see it comingtogether and say, oh, that
doesn't quite look right.
Maybe we need, you know, maybewe need to rethink something
that we had designed before.
All these things are just, youknow, great opportunities to
just make the world a little bitbetter place in the work that

(10:37):
you're doing.

Matt Gerstner (10:39):
That's a fantastic place to end things
today.
Nate, thank you for your timeand the insights you've provided
, and listeners, thanks forjoining in today.
Can.

Nate Roisen (10:46):
I look at the camera now you can look at the
camera now.

Matt Gerstner (10:49):
Thanks everybody.