Best practices and lessons learned from the classroom. Keeping the attention of 30 students is a challenge in any classroom. In a teaching laboratory, each new day can feel like its own unpredictable experiment, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Laboratory instruction and classroom management can be improved when lab layouts and classroom designs are optimized. Consider the following five design concepts for teaching lab success.
Read More
Building a lab: 7 common pitfalls to avoid
Building a lab can be complicated. To stay competitive, it is crucial that companies adapt to market changes. New products and services may mean changes in operations. For companies that have lab spaces, this can be costly. Many companies make decisions based on saving money without planning ahead.
Read More
An engineer inside the classroom: how the built environment influences engineering education
As an adjunct engineering professor at a large university, I have had the opportunity to see the impact that the built environment has on my engineering students. Innovative features in a classroom can greatly enhance learning capabilities, whereas poor design (and even poor ventilation) can hinder cognition and learning.
Read More
Innovation science
What is innovation science, or rather, what makes our labs capable of supporting innovation? If you look back at history, many of our famous lab inventions came about in non-conventional and even accidental ways.
Read More
Vision your lab in one day
Laboratory projects can be extremely challenging and require a very thorough analysis. How do we as designers use our knowledge of past projects to work with the client to create their vision? In many cases a high level visioning process can be used in combination with practical approaches to create that vision in a day. How can you vision your lab in one day?
Read More
Effective design approaches for academic teaching laboratories
The teaching lab environment is one that presents its own unique set of design parameters for the architect/laboratory planner.
Read More
5 “no-cost strategies” for your lab project
Laboratory owners are constantly challenged to create new research environments with limited budgets and fewer resources. In addition, consideration has to be given to the “triple bottom line” (people, planet and profit), within these strict budgetary constraints. Cost-conscious owners want facilities to meet their vision and business objectives and include flexibility, efficiency, safety and robust utility/engineering systems.
Read More
Getting analytical on labs: analytical lab design trends
The past few years have yielded some interesting trends in analytical lab design and operation in the corporate biopharmaceutical marketplace. This article summarizes those trends and some considerations regarding the physical environment in which analytical labs operate.
Read More
Lab planning details that matter
Lab planning encompasses details both large and small, but even the smallest of details can have a big impact on efficiency.
Read More
Creating a future lab within an aging infrastructure
How do you engage a client in a way that frees his/her mind to the prospects of an open flexible lab design? How do you lead them to see the potential within an old, tired building? Many of our clients, life sciences and otherwise, have antiquated labs in antiquated buildings on campuses that have been built to their limits.
Read More