4 Days, One Program

A successful laboratory is not simply a space that meets its program on opening day. It must remain safe, understandable, supportable, adaptable, and financially sustainable long after the designers and contractors have left. This interactive workshop pairs two perspectives: The…

Speakers

Dwayne HenrySpeaker RL Regal LeftwichSpeaker

Laboratory safety is about more than meeting codes and providing the right safety equipment. The decisions made during planning, design, construction, renovation, and commissioning can have a lasting impact on how safely a laboratory operates—and whether a space actually supports…

Successful laboratory projects depend on accurate information, but how can design teams know whether the people providing that information truly represent the needs of the organization? And how can laboratory leaders ensure their staff’s operational expertise is heard before key…

Speakers

Shrei Crenshaw, BS, HT(ASCP)CMSpeaker Chris Orlando, RN, BSNSpeaker

A look at current and future trends in lab design, and how project teams and lab end users can adapt.

Speakers

Adam DenmarkSpeaker

Ceremony honoring the winners of the 2027 Design Excellence Awards.

The $61.2 million renovation of The Ohio State University’s 115,000-sf Campbell Hall demonstrates how rehabilitation can transform a 65-year-old, underperforming academic building into a modern research environment that supports multidisciplinary science. The project consolidated nutritional sciences research, teaching, and clinical…

Speakers

George Kemper, AIASpeaker SM Sara McMackenSpeaker

What happens when a laboratory is designed to support the research but not the researcher? High-performance laboratory environments must do more than meet technical and safety requirements—they must also support the diverse people who use them. Human-centered design should be…

Speakers

Cody Henderson, AIA, NCARB, LEED APSpeaker Jennifer Heemstra, PhDSpeaker

A laboratory can be beautifully designed and successfully constructed yet still encounter major problems when it is time to activate, relocate, and begin operating. The most costly failures often originate months earlier: equipment does not fit as planned, utilities or…

Speakers

Shrei Crenshaw, BS, HT(ASCP)CMSpeaker Chris Orlando, RN, BSNSpeaker Dwayne HenrySpeaker

Drawing on more than 30 years of food safety and microbiology research experience, this presentation shares lessons learned from relocating and expanding a microbiology laboratory. From a scientist’s perspective, rather than a professional laboratory designer’s, the presentation examines how research…

Explore how Agilent can support the planning and design of laboratory environments. This sponsored session will examine considerations for integrating laboratory equipment, technology, workflows, and future needs into the design process to help create spaces that support both scientific work…

A nearly 400,000-sf pediatric research facility was designed to support flexible, collaborative, and technology-forward research. Following occupancy, a post-occupancy evaluation examined how laboratory environments perform from the perspective of researchers and staff and explored relationships between laboratory design characteristics and…

Speakers

Zahra Zamani, PhD, EDACSpeaker

Buying an existing building for a laboratory can look like the fastest, cheapest path to growth—until the fit-out exposes what the due diligence missed. This session draws from two large, active Eurofins laboratory tenant improvements in San Diego and Rancho…

Speakers

Matt Brady, AIASpeaker

The pace of change in the modern laboratory environment is accelerating as scientific discovery and innovation in research techniques evolve. Texas Tech Health Science Center is adopting a new approach to flexible laboratory design in which furnishings, workspaces, walls, and…

Speakers

Andrew SteppSpeaker James BeecherSpeaker Brent Adams, PESpeaker

How do you translate the needs of multiple agencies with different missions, workflows, equipment, and growth plans into one cohesive laboratory facility? This session examines the programming strategies used for the 220,000-square-foot Missouri Multi-Agency Laboratory Campus and highlights lessons applicable…

Speakers

Galen LifSpeaker

Connect with exhibiting partners, explore solutions across the Innovation Trail, and catch fast, focused Solution Spotlight demos showcasing products, technologies, and ideas for today’s laboratory environments.

In the creation of new lab space, historical typologies, chemistry, biology, etc., have enabled the refinement of rigorous operational and safety measures to become well-defined paradigms when undertaking a new laboratory design—each often treated with a prescribed series of known…

Speakers

Kevin Hollenbeck, AIASpeaker Marc Sano, PE, CEMSpeaker

The Region of Waterloo’s Environmental Enforcement and Laboratory Services (EELS) facility runs accredited water and wastewater testing that cannot stop—not even for a 30-million-dollar expansion and renovation of a facility that has evolved incrementally since 1988. This session details how…

Speakers

Mary Georgious, PEng, LEED APSpeaker

Successful laboratory projects depend on more than good design. They require clear communication, thoughtful questions, and collaboration among lab users, designers, and project teams. In this interactive panel, speakers will share lessons learned from the Lubbock County Medical Examiner’s Office…

Lab users are often asked to make critical decisions about a new laboratory, renovation, or expansion with far less project experience than the architects, engineers, and contractors at the table. This panel will help lab users identify the questions they…

Laboratory safety is often treated as a compliance or operational issue after a facility is designed and built. Still, many decisions that shape safety, compliance, workflow, and long-term flexibility are made much earlier in the project. This interactive roundtable will…

Speakers

Jason Nagy, PhD MLS(ASCP), CQA, QLSSpeaker Dan Scungio, MLS (ASCP) SLS, CQA (ASQ), CHOPSpeaker

Facing growing pressure to transform academic research amid technological advances arising from commercialization, while managing new capital and operational constraints from reduced enrollment and research grant investment, academic institutions must consider the embodied value of existing real estate assets. Can…

Speakers

MM Matthew MaloneSpeaker Steve Gifford, AIASpeaker MK Maey KhaledSpeaker

Explore how sustainable material choices move from aspiration to implementation through a series of real-world vignettes drawn from complex laboratory projects utilizing The Switch List, among other resources. Laboratory environments are among the most resource-intensive building types, requiring high air…

Speakers

Maria Montgomery, AIA, LEED AP, WELL APSpeaker Nathan Uibel, AIA, LEEP AP BD+C, Fitwel & My Green Lab AmbassadorSpeaker Amina Helstern, NCIDQ, LEED AP®, LFA, Fitwel AmbassadorSpeaker

What happens when we design today’s laboratories for a future we cannot accurately predict? Rapid advances in automation, digitalization, artificial intelligence, scientific convergence, and changing workforce expectations are increasingly shaping laboratories. At the same time, market disruption and growing demands…

Speakers

Jennifer DiMambroSpeaker

Delivering complex laboratory environments is challenging under any conditions—but what happens when an aggressive schedule compresses every phase simultaneously? This session examines how project stakeholders collaborated to transform an existing 185,000 sf core-and-shell facility into a specialized research and development…

Speakers

Michael ByronSpeaker SP Steve Palumbo, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP BD+CSpeaker

As higher education institutions face increasing pressure to advance research excellence and improve the student experience while simultaneously addressing financial constraints and environmental goals, responsible space stewardship has emerged as a critical facilities planning strategy. Laboratory environments, as the most…

Speakers

Isabel Mandujano, RA, LEED APSpeaker LY Lindsey YazbekSpeaker

In 2022, a leading science-based biopharmaceutical company embarked on a major expansion of its campus. The long-running project encompassed the construction of several new buildings and parking garages near existing laboratory buildings and animal holding facilities and included heavy excavation…

Speakers

VC Victor ClementeSpeaker Justin LauSpeaker

Automation is changing how laboratories are organized, equipped, and used, but the design implications are not always straightforward. This interactive roundtable will bring together lab users and design/build professionals to share experiences with automation in new and existing facilities. Participants…

Speakers

CZ Chad ZuberbuhlerSpeaker Danielle Yeaton, AIA, LEED APSpeaker SC Sarah Cimino, AIASpeaker

Connect with exhibiting partners, explore solutions across the Innovation Trail, and catch fast, focused Solution Spotlight demos showcasing products, technologies, and ideas for today’s laboratory environments.

How can universities expand research capacity for robotics, AI, and autonomous systems while strategically sharing resources and infrastructure across multiple campuses? This session presents a four-year case study of three George Mason University projects that together create a research continuum…

Speakers

José Leo Arango, Assoc. AIA, NCARBSpeaker Brian Tucker, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP BD+CSpeaker

How do you fund sustainable laboratory design strategies when project budgets are tight, and competing priorities are everywhere? This interactive roundtable will focus on the practical challenge of making the financial case for sustainable design and finding creative ways to…

Speakers

Punit Jain, AIA, LEED FellowSpeaker

This case study explores the accelerated design and delivery of a next-generation chemistry facility supporting medicinal, analytical, nanoscale, milliscale, purification, and formatting operations. Designed for continuous 24/7 use, the laboratory integrates robotics with automated solvent distribution, waste collection systems, and…

Speakers

Wan Leung, AIASpeaker

Laboratory exhaust fans consume significant amounts of energy compared with other building systems. Depending on the initial mechanical design, architectural configuration, and meteorological site conditions, operators can achieve significant energy savings by running laboratory exhaust fans at a reduced volume…

Complex science and research projects rarely succeed through the efforts of a single discipline or organization. They require project teams, end-user representatives, and specialty partners to navigate competing priorities, evolving requirements, operational constraints, and uncertainty, often while working under significant…

Laboratory projects involve countless decisions, competing priorities, and compromises, but the people who live with those decisions every day don’t always have the opportunity to share what they’ve learned. In this interactive closing panel, laboratory users, managers, and project professionals…

Step inside the newly completed UNT Dallas STEM Building, a state-of-the-art facility designed to support interdisciplinary education, research, and collaboration. The building brings together adaptable classrooms, advanced research and wet laboratories, specialized instrumentation rooms, and collaborative spaces within an environment…

Step inside the Dallas County Health and Human Services BSL-3 Laboratory, a state-of-the-art, 63,000-square-foot facility designed to strengthen regional public health defense and emergency response capabilities. The facility brings together high-containment BSL-3 laboratories alongside BSL-2 and BSL-1 spaces, supported by…

Explore two complementary laboratory environments within the Pegasus Park life sciences ecosystem. BioLabs Pegasus Park provides flexible, shared laboratory and office space designed to support early-stage life science companies with access to infrastructure, equipment, operational support, and a connected entrepreneurial…