This work was key to the development of Bryden Wood’s Chip Thinking™ approach.. Adam is also building contacts and exploring DfMA opportunities in Asia/Pacific.
Many of these issues can be mitigated simply through good design, and, in our experience, layouts need to be detailed earlier than a new-build project.Capacity modelling may also be necessary to better forecast the amount of equipment, benching, storage, desks, lockers, etc.
over the long-run.. Capacity model for a biopharma QC lab showing utilisation of individual equipment items over time.. 2.Height.. Limited headroom in existing offices may be insufficient for taller lab equipment or increased services distribution.. An ideal starting-point for a lab is a floor-to-floor height between 4.2 and 4.5m, with an office typically being in the 3.6 to 4.2m range.. Taller items such as fume cabinets and MBSCs can normally be accommodated under a 2.7m high ceiling (similar to what you might find in a modern office), however some specialist or larger-scale equipment will require additional headroom or maintenance and withdrawal space, and localised raised ceilings may be necessary, or the equipment simply might not fit.. Labs require many more services than an office, which normally means a deeper ceiling void.Limited risers in offices can also result in more service crossovers and congestion, increasing this depth further still.
It is often possible to mitigate some of this through good design, such as lowering ceilings in corridors to accommodate main ductwork runs or positioning lower height rooms close to risers.Ground floor units and older office buildings may also have larger floor-to-floor heights, and there can even be opportunities to increase headroom by removing raised-access floors (though this will impact floor thresholds.)
A deeper ceiling void may also introduce the need for sprinklers or fire detection systems.. 3.
Structural frames in existing office buildings may be unable to support higher lab loads or vibration sensitive equipment..Where the science, technology, and compliance (safety and quality) are generally hard requirements, it is often the productivity or flexibility of the lab space that is impacted..
Regarding productivity, office to lab conversions tend to be less spatially efficient (e.g.bench space per floor area) than a new-build.
This can be due to structural grids or the general proportions of the available space, among other things.A tight or convoluted lab layout may mean disorganised or congested material and personnel flows, adding time to processes or increasing the risk of mix-ups and cross-contamination.
(Editor: Powerful Luggage)