Yaneva Albena
University of Manchester, Manchester, UK.
Soc Stud Sci. 2022 Aug 6;52(5):3063127221114721. doi: 10.1177/03063127221114721.
Building on and renewing a long line of STS research of lab materialities, this article sheds light on a type of architecture organized around the 'heroic agency' of a new nanomaterial, graphene. It examines how design responds to the dynamic and multi-applicational ambitions of contemporary science. An ethnographic study of the National Graphene Institute in Manchester allows us to see how the building's design has epistemic and social effects, how different spatial arrangements facilitate the shaping of research habits and mediate various rhythms of lab work. Key features of this hybrid lab are: first, a shifting balance between public and private places, with a prevalence of collective activities; second, its capacity to reinforce epistemically and socially the conditions of visibility, by emphasizing the work of making research practice visible; third, its distinctive way to speed up research, often by slowing down the circulation of people and things. All these features make the hybrid lab a unique spatial articulation of a new cultural order of innovation.
基于并更新了一系列关于实验室物质性的科学技术与社会（STS）研究，本文揭示了一种围绕新型纳米材料石墨烯的“英雄式能动性”组织起来的建筑类型。它考察了设计如何回应当代科学的动态及多应用领域的抱负。对曼彻斯特国家石墨烯研究所的人种志研究让我们得以看到该建筑的设计如何产生认知和社会影响，不同的空间布局如何促进研究习惯的形成并调节实验室工作的各种节奏。这个混合实验室的关键特征包括：其一，公共和私人空间之间不断变化的平衡，集体活动占主导；其二，通过强调使研究实践可见的工作，在认知和社会层面强化可见性条件的能力；其三，其独特的加速研究的方式，通常是通过减缓人员和物品的流通。所有这些特征使这个混合实验室成为创新新文化秩序的独特空间表达。
