When tenants begin working on the upper floors of 10 World Trade in Boston’s Seaport District — a forthcoming 17-story high-rise that just broke ground earlier this month — they’ll look out over the city through the tinted glass that reacts and dims based on the position of the sun and the time of day. It’s not just a high-tech amenity. For many of the scientists and researchers who will be conducting tests in the upper reaches of the new tower, the sun shading is essential to protecting experiments from getting spoiled by excess sunlight. For architect Victor Vizgaitis of Sasaki Associates, the firm that designed the building for developer BGI, creating lab space more than 100 feet in the air carried a host of technical and regulatory challenges. But in a market where demand for space shows little sign of slowing, and most importantly, sought-after talent prefers urban locations, the push to go vertical is undeniable. “Scientists and researchers and lab workers are also humans, and the ability to be in the middle of everything, and part of the action, is just as important to them as any office worker,” he said. 
High-rise labs aren’t brand-new, especially in Boston. But in recent weeks, 10 World Trade, set to include 555K SF of lab space, has been joined by a number of announcements of new tower projects that include significant lab space, such as a £500M ($656M) lab-led tower block in…  Read the full story here. | 
