Considerations for planning and implementing a research lab to meet cost, safety, and flexibility criteria

WHEN APPROACHING THE PROJECT of building a research lab, there are many questions that need to be answered:

• How clean does it need to be?
• If you are starting simple but want to have it evolve into a more sophisticated, higher-tech lab in the future, what are the considerations you should think about at the outset?
• If you are working on a fixed-cost basis such as a grant, what do you need to know to be adequately able to support the research, yet not overbuild?

In attempting to answer these questions, you may receive input from a number of sources, each possibly with their own bias. This article will help you gain a perspective on such a project so that you can go into the planning and building stages armed with more confidence, knowing that you know what to ask, and what to look for.

Funding: Conflicts/Tension Over Dollars
Anyone that has applied for grants, loans, or research funds recognizes that there exist conflicts the moment they receive approval to proceed. For the sake of this discussion, let’s say you have just received your grant. On the one hand, you recognize the need to have a working laboratory that will support the research that was approved. On the other hand, you are aware that every dollar spent on the facility reduces the funds necessary to provide for the staffing required to support the project. Even worse, the estimates for a workable laboratory may have been flawed due to the lack of investigative funds, the lack of knowledge of applicable design concepts, or construction codes. After all, it is a lot easier to estimate the cost of personnel hoursin the other half of this scenario.

An added potential problem is whether the facility is new or being retrofitted into an existing building. Not only may you miss some elements in the lab itself, but there may be hidden costs in supporting the use of the facility. This usually comes frominadequate utilities or the unavailability of tie-in points to existing systems.

Story Time
I am reminded of a meeting on the grounds of a major university, where the facilities department asked us to price the design and construction costs of a small laboratory to be used for advanced technology research. We went away with a rather simple but clear view of the needs and returned with an estimate that was about $300,000. When we presented the pricing and its justification, the senior researcher became agitated over the price. He had evidently done this kind of research before. He suggested that we should be able to do theentire retrofit for less than $50,000. In the next hour we explored eachand every item of the proposal to find that, indeed, he may have used $50,000 to support his project elsewhere, but only at the cost of several code and safety violations. The university chose NOT to risk lives or systems to cut the cost and we were instructed to do the project as bid. In hindsight, we had empathy for the researcher. Here was a person that had estimated his research dollars on previous history and come up short. Obviously he was forced to reduce his available funds that would have been used to support staffing and othersecondary costs like equipment.

What’s Right
What isn’t right is not making the laboratory safe. Code compliance will support this correctness, so you can not, nor should you, avoid compliance. Where the answers become gray is in the choices to limit the life of the facility.As an example, we could build a laboratory that would be sufficient for the current challenges of the research, and potentially reduce first cost. Of course, the possibility exists for the requirement to do extensive modifications to the systems or, even worse, rebuild the room or rooms from scratch in the next phase, should it be necessary. In some cases, this might be appropriate, but in most cases this will eventually make the overall cost of success much higher. Worst of all is the possibility that no matter what you do, you find you are risking success of the research because the laboratory will not supportthe processes required.