Summers visited the campus last summer, and a slew of other top administrators have followed suit. Scientists and physical planners alike say the campus—despite obvious differences—is in many ways a model to build on.

“There’s a lot that’s attractive about the building that you can build in Mission Bay,” Summers said.

Stanford’s Bio-X, a single building geared toward bringing together scientists with an interest in biology, was also studied closely by planners as a model for buildings seeking to foster collaborative work, Spiegelman said.

Summers said many scientists have been out to see locations like Mission Bay and Bio-X in the course of their work.

Matthew P. Scott, chair of the Bio-X Scientific Leadership Council, said finding “daring” faculty to help pioneer new cross-discipline facilities has proved key at Stanford.

“The people who are rigid, the people who think that because it’s the way they’ve always done it, it’s got to be right—this kind of stuff stops progress dead in its tracks,” he said. “And then we either have to go around it or through it.”

Hyman wrote that University planners would draw lessons from Mission Bay, Bio-X and a number of other recent science facilities.

“Each university is different, but clearly we can learn from each other’s successes and mistakes as long as we are sensitive to our local academic context,” he wrote. “What seems to be universal is the desire of scientists to collaborate across disciplines and the role of core facilities, computer power, and large-scale databases in the efforts of many peer institutions.”

Cooper, Robertson & Partners, the firm selected Friday to lead the first stage of Harvard’s master planning for Allston, was partially distinguished by its body of work on academic science campuses. Cooper has worked at Johns Hopkins University, team member Laurie Olin has helped plan Yale’s Science Hill and Frank O. Gehry designed the brand-new Stata Center at MIT.

“I think there’s no question that if you want to attract the best faculty and the best students you’ve got to have adequate facilities for them to work in and study in,” said David McGregor, managing director of Cooper, Robertson.

In view of Harvard’s current needs, the science task force warned starkly that the University cannot afford to lose the opportunity presented by a new campus.

“If we fail to take advantage of Allston…we expect that Harvard’s capacity to maintain a vital, world-class environment that can attract and engage the brightest minds will be diminished,” the report says.

But if Harvard does capitalize on Allston, the committee projects that Harvard will be better able to attract top faculty and students across the sciences.

“We will be able to expand significantly in the area of multidisciplinary research, positioning the University to identify and lead scientific revolutions and to develop important commercial applications,” the report says.

To be successful, the science report stresses “flexibililty” in development to accommodate emerging cutting-edge areas of research.