March 16, 2026

Diamond Schmitt’s approach to research lab design is featured in Lab Design News in an article by Senior Associate Dennis Giobbe, titled “Bumping Into Breakthroughs.” The piece explores how the growing shift of research labs into high-density urban environments is pushing these facilities to grow vertically—reshaping how we think about social and collaborative spaces within the typically siloed culture ingrained in tall buildings.

"Tall buildings fight conversation," Dennis says. "They organize complexity vertically, stacking people and programs with great efficiency, but this often leads to fragmentation—with teams separated by floors and disciplines divided. It’s a serendipity killer, because you see the same people, in the same loop, every day.”

To address this, Dennis emphasizes that the real task of the vertical lab is rebuilding the social life of a campus across different levels. "Collaboration and connection in this context must be designed," he explains, noting that research thrives where people mingle, and conversation sparks new ideas.

This approach involves establishing interconnected floors and creating opportunities for social interactions by placing "social magnets" like kitchens, lounges, and meeting rooms right where movement already exists to ensure that "circulation and conversation share the same address." The strategy, Dennis notes, relies on open circulation, convenience stairs, and stacked commons as a way to "stack relationships" rather than just equipment.

Reflecting on the firm’s work at the Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning at SickKids in Toronto, Dennis explains that the goal was to "subdivide a tall building—in that case, twenty-one stories—into smaller communities linked by visible movement and shared spaces." These multi-level hubs were pushed to the street edge, where daylight and the city’s energy “pull people out of their heads and into each other’s orbit.”

In more recent projects, such as the Clinical Support and Research Centre at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, "collision zones" are woven into the plan to create crossroads where clinical functions intersect with research floors. Movement between these areas becomes an opportunity for exchange—making social mixing and knowledge transfer a part of the daily routine.

“A vertical campus succeeds when it reliably sets up the next breakthrough-catalyzing conversation—across disciplines, teams, and people who might otherwise never meet,” Dennis concludes.

Read the full article in Lab Design News.