The Most Beautiful Science Buildings

San Diego's well-deserved rep as a life sciences mecca was further cemented last week with the official debut of Alexandria Real Estate Equities' global HQ for Illumina, a world leader in genetic sequencing. (If this were a Disney movie, it would be titled Finding Genome and feature an itty-bitty, motherless chromosome).

The ribbon-cutting for the 500k SF campus boasted a host of luminaries. Our friend Doug Gates took this pic of state Sen. Marty Block, Illumina CEO Jay Flatley and chairman William Rastetter, and Alexandria EVP Dan Ryan. (Later, those big scissors were used to cut up some DNA.) Alexandria, which developed and owns the campus, worked with the tenant to design and build collaborative open spaces. Flatley calls innovation and teamwork key to the firm's continued growth, helping it to attract and retain top talent. Teamwork is also good for DNA itself. It's how babies are made.

The project has a world-class lab/office facility, gym and athletic facilities, a full-service cafe (above), and something else you don't see everyday at business complexes: an outdoor amphitheater. Illumina, which employs about 1,300 locally, has significant hiring plans for San Diego in 2013 (so better bring in a few more chairs).

Dan describes the project a "one-of-a-kind" life sciences campus, which has development opportunities for an additional 393k SF. Illumina brings Alexandria's portfolio of San Diego life sciences space to 2.6M (rentable) SF.

Here's a look at that outdoor amphitheater, where employees will not only sit through management presentations, but also be able to stage their own production of Les Mitochondria. It seats 1,750.