Designing Flexible Labs Amid Shifting Research Futures

Ballinger’s Katherine Wohlsen, AIA, LEED AP and Gregory Muth, LEED AP will present “Dealing with Uncertainty in a Time of Uncertainty” at the 25th Annual Lab Design Conference in Orlando, Florida, on May 12.

The session draws on their experience planning the William A. and Ami Kuan Danoff Life Sciences Laboratories at Brown University, where long-term academic research goals had to be balanced against rapidly changing funding realities. The design team, which includes Ballinger, TenBerke, BR+A, and Suffolk, developed a flexible framework to accommodate a broad range of future hires and new research directions.

As the project moved into construction, volatility in the academic research environment scrambled the anticipated research mix, testing the resilience of the original program assumptions. This presentation examines how growth models were used early in planning to establish a flexible program, and how the building’s adaptable design ultimately enabled the university to recalibrate occupant mix and space allocation as funding conditions changed.

Katherine and Greg will discuss what truly makes a laboratory flexible, including the role of BSL planning, strategies for incorporating shell space, and design decisions that allow research spaces to respond to change over time.

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