Published March 23, 2015 on labdesignnews.com
In this month’s column for Lab Design News we examine why centralized core facilities best serve the increasingly flexible research environment and draw similarities to the popular open office plan.
Click to enlarge
Core facility concepts: Distributed “matrix” vs. centralized “neighborhood.”
Adaptability and flexibility are key ingredients to successful lab planning and design. As the technology changes, so does the nature of the research and the ways in which researchers use the space. Labs, though equipped in a more complex and technical manner, are ultimately workplaces. Like open offices throughout the corporate world that aim to inspire collaboration and serendipitous connection, labs are transforming into open work zones supported by collocated specialized equipment. Taking into consideration the polarization of the research environment—where the generic research space becomes increasingly generic and the specialized research space becomes more specialized and idiosyncratic—and the provision for shared highly specialized core facilities, which enables flexibility in lab space, the question becomes; how can core facilities better support the research community and provide convergence zones?
Read the full article.
The 2025 OpenLAB Boston studio work will be exhibited at Virginia Tech Monday, March 2nd through Wednesday, March 4th.
Please join us for the following events on Monday, March 2nd:
11:00am - Lecture with Parke MacDowell
1:00pm Lobby talk with Kevin Sullivan
This year’s studio identifies seven sites along the frayed edges of Boston’s Greenway. The Greenway is a one-mile-long linear park running through the heart of the city, reconnecting downtown Boston with its waterfront. Many of the parcels along its edges remain undeveloped and present mute, blank facades to the public realm. Addressing and repairing these edges through acts of infilling, layering, grafting, framing, and placemaking is the core focus of the studio—SUTURE.