It’s Good to Be Back!
Hello, Lab Design News community! It has been two years since my last “Design Between the Lines” column post, and it feels great to be back! A number of things have changed in the interim, so this post is intended to reacquaint myself with the community, and I look forward to diving into a variety of science and technology topics in the months to come.
While I admittedly “fell” into the S&T design world without it necessarily being a part of my architectural plan after graduating, what maintained my interest and made me want to stick with the specialty is the opportunity to be a part of the ecosystem that ultimately changes and saves lives. While I will never be the scientist who cures cancer, being a part of the team who designs the facilities which lead to the discoveries that ultimately do is pretty impactful. I was on my own medical journey through 2025 and the first half of 2026, and being able to trust the providers, equipment, and facilities I needed to engage with really helped me to remain optimistic and have positive outcomes. This refueled my interest in the specialty, and I feel really fortunate to have the opportunity to do work everyday that I find to be meaningful.
Related to my health journey, I ultimately took a sabbatical starting early 2026 to focus on scheduling appointments and getting back to full health. I’m happy and fortunate to report back that the time off was effective, and I’ve been enjoying getting reinvolved in the industry again. I recently announced the start of my new business, Ambrusch LLC, which offers architecture and permit expediting services in the S&T space and beyond. With that, I have also been going to industry events, which I look forward to discussing in future columns, and hope to receive feedback from folks on whether they have different insights or opinions.
Which brings me to the future of Design Between the Lines …
As I have done in the past, I look forward to interviewing a variety of industry experts to offer insights on lab design from different perspectives, offering guidance beyond what codes and “best practices” can tell us. I also will share thoughts on current hot topics and conference/event highlights regarding what is trending in the industry. I would like to get to the bottom of some discussions that seem to surface frequently, such as: what codes and regulations actually dictate where you can and cannot have floor drains in lab/lab adjacent spaces, and why? But something new I would like to introduce in this rebirth of the column is reader input. What topics would you like to see discussed in the column? Is there a professional you would be interested in seeing interviewed? Is there something more confounding than floor drains and compliant hazardous material storage?
I welcome community input, as this column is intended to address things that are currently and broadly of interest. I encourage everyone to send feedback, ideas, or even rebuttals to lori@ambrusch.co—it will be fun to make this an engaging space!
I am looking forward to restarting this journey with Design Between the Lines, and am thankful that Lab Design News has created this platform for us to share and discuss ideas that are shaping the industry. Stay tuned to see what the first topic will address in October!
