Lab Design Announces 2024 Design Excellence Awards Winners

Lab Design is happy to announce the winners of its fifth annual Design Excellence Awards, a program that honors achievements in research laboratory design, planning, and construction. These awards acknowledge everyone who touches the lab design process—from the architect and lab planner to the engineer, as well as laboratory equipment and furniture manufacturers and the lab end user.

Following the completion of the submission and judging processes, Lab Design is proud to announce the winners of its 2024 competition:

Excellence in Whole Building/Holistic Design

Rice University Ralph S. O’Connor Engineering

Houston, TX

Submitted by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), in collaboration with Scientia Architects

Excellence in Interior Design

State of New Mexico Forensic Laboratory

Santa Fe, NM

Submitted by Dekker Perich Sabatini

Excellence in Small Project Design

NASA Asteroid Sample Curation Lab

Houston, TX

Submitted by RS&H

Lab Design is also happy to announce that the following lab projects have been awarded Special Merit recognition by our judges. The Special Merit awards are sponsored by El Sea LLC.

Special Merit: Technical Complexity

Australian National University Research School of Physics Stage 1 Building

Acton, Australian Capital Territory

Submitted by Hassell

Special Merit: Sustainable Practices in Design

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, William and Linda Frost Center for Research and Innovation

San Luis Obispo, CA

Submitted by ZGF Architects

Special Merit: Educational Lab Innovation

Tāwharau Ora–School of Veterinary Science

Palmerston North, New Zealand

Submitted by Lab-works Architecture

Special Merit: Technical Excellence

Pacific Northwest National Lab Energy Sciences Center

Richland, WA

Submitted by Kirksey Architecture

Special Merit: Design Excellence

University of San Diego Franklin Antonio Hall

La Jolla, CA

Submitted by Perkins&Will

The Design Excellence Awards program was launched by Lab Design’s partner publication, Lab Manager, in 2019. The competition invites industry professionals to put their recent lab projects into words for a chance to enter into an elite community within the lab design world. Entrants are asked to demonstrate what makes their facilities unique and cutting-edge, and how they can serve as models for the lab design/build community. 

A panel of industry leaders—consisting of laboratory architects, engineers, construction professionals, and editorial staff from Lab Design—analyzes each entry for its approach to lab design. Projects entered in the Design Excellence Awards represent a wide range of laboratory types, such as research labs, academic facilities, healthcare and veterinary buildings, water treatment labs, government facilities, and more.

The project teams will be honored on May 20 during the Lab Design Conference in Phoenix, AZ. The category winners will accept their awards and offer brief presentations about their groundbreaking projects. To secure your ticket for this event, please visit https://www.labdesignconference.com/

Profiles of the Design Excellence Awards honorees will appear on labdesignnews.com in the near future. 

Congratulations to all of our honorees!

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