Trends in Laboratory Designs

Trends in Laboratory Designs

In designing a modern laboratory, architects strive to create a lab environment responsive to present needs while still capable of accommodating future demands. Key needs driving this lab design trend includes the desire to create social buildings that facilitate team-based research and the need for flexibility in lab designs. Additionally, architects strive to create lab designs that are environmentally sustainable, which sometimes includes development of science parks with the government.

Social buildings

In today’s research labs, science is an intensely social pursuit. A successful and productive scientist is intimately familiar with the substance and styles of his or her colleague’s work. This team-oriented approach allows a scientist to adopt new research skills and tools as soon as they are available. To facilitate this important social structure, it’s crucial for the architecture of the facility to support interaction, flexible use of space, and resource sharing.

Meeting places

For an architectural lab design to facilitate interaction, the lab itself needs to have places for researchers to meet and socialize. For example, a lab environment should have break rooms, meeting rooms, and atrium spaces. This allows scientists to congregate outside of their labs and talk with one another. In fact, stairways, fire stairs, and stairs built-in window seats can also give people a spot to stop and exchange ideas in between research.

Open labs

In line with the social approach to labs, many modern labs are open in their architectural designs, as this supports team-based work. This is in stark contrast to the closed lab designs of the past, which focused on accommodating the needs of the individual researcher. In an open research lab, researchers share both the space itself as well as the equipment and support staff. This design feature is prevalent in modern wet biology, chemistry and engineering labs.

At Sears Gerbo Architecture, we believe that good design and discovery go hand in hand. To facilitate an environment for discovery, our Tucson architecture encourages inspiration and imagination. Our firm has extensive experience designing laboratory facilities across the globe. To learn more about architecture in Tucson, AZ, please give us a call at (520) 722-5079, or to view our portfolio of work within the laboratory industry, visit our specialty services page and click “labs” on the left to filter by project type.