Some industry sectors saw more cleanroom builds than others in 2013, with biotech, medical and packaging sectors enjoying the most investment in new facilities. Susan Birks looks at the trends and the growing demand for modular and flexible plants. Large-scale projects involving the build of permanent bricks and mortar were relatively few in number, but of the projects undertaken many pusbed the boundaries of design, environmental control and sustainability to new levels. Pharmacy A15 In terms of good design, Dutch architects EGM architecten and Royal HaskoningDHV showed that a new potent drug handling facility could he both architecturally beautiful and practical and have a high regard for safety. Built for the Erasmus Medical Centrein Rotterdam, the A15 hospital pharmacy consists of a production building with 1,900m2 of cleanrooms and 400m2 of labs, as well as offices and a separate warehouse. An important aspect of the design was allowing a large amount of daylight into the interior, to contribute to employees' well-being. Large glass surfaces, wide corridors and long sightlines were also designed to stimulate communication and interaction among staff. A narrow construction site resulted in an elongated building, which optimises the production process. The box-in-box design created a corridor around the cleanrooms, providing a view of the production process without the need to enter the department. Additional space was created for a services distribution floor above the cleanroom. This consisted of a walkable cleanroom ceiling spanning the entire cleanroom area for the distribution of all teehuical utilities with easy access to the grids and fittings of the rooms below. All central technical building services were located directly above this distribution floor. This design enabled allmaintenance or repair work on teehuical components to he carried out from outside the manufacturing area, safeguarding the hygienic conditions in the cleanrooms, and during normal working hours rather than (expensive) evening or weekend hours. Many recent builds have involved the repurposing of existing cleanrooms or facilities. This trend bas accelerated as pharmaceutical multinationals have rationalised facilities and moved production to cheaper locations outside Europe. Some expansive facilities have been split up and repurposed into 'incubator bioparks' with smaller labs and facilities for emerging life science and biotech companies. Photo: EGM architecten and Royal HaskoningDHV designed and constructed a beautiful yet functional off-site hospital pharmacy building for Rotterdam's Erasmus Medical Centre Source: Cleanroom Technology Read the earlier article on Pharmacy A15