Professional Profile: Cody Ferguson
Cody Ferguson, laboratory planner, with HERA Laboratory Planners
Cody Ferguson is a laboratory planner with HERA Laboratory Planners in St. Louis, MO. Lab Design News spoke to Cody about the importance of active listening, his expansive home library, and how crucial the use of color is in a lab space.
Q: What sparked your interest in designing labs—was there a defining moment that led you to this career?
A: I have been interested in architecture and design since I was young. I started fresh out of college on the manufacturing side of things at Institutional Casework, Inc. (ICI). Working at the end stages of projects really sparked the desire in me to explore the other phases of designing laboratories. I would review architectural drawings to create manufacturing shop drawings and found myself asking a lot of questions about why things were shown a certain way, how can we make sure this works, will these designs really provide the end user what they want and/or need? Eventually I found my way to HERA and now I get to work with like minded people and clients to create and plan the spaces I used to just draw shop drawings for.
Q: What is your favorite building, lab-related or not?
A: Right now, it’s the Lincoln Park Conservatory in Chicago. Honorable mentions go to the Old Library at Trinity College in Dublin, and Hotel Tassel in Brussels.
Q: What is one important “soft skill” that all lab design experts should have?
A: I think you really must practice active listening. Not just between client and designer but within your teams as well. The communication between architects, designers, planners, users, and engineers is vital to a project.
Q: What’s a common mistake you see in lab planning that could easily be avoided?
A: The designer in me always picks up on color palette. Most lab design tends to gravitate to white and black finishes. Creating the opportunities to bring in the colors and textures to these spaces in ways that do not impact the functionality or practicality since laboratories tend to have such specific requirements.
Q: What kinds of hobbies or interests do you have outside of work?
A: I am an avid reader. So much so that I have a library in my house, which has become hard to contain to one room. I also enjoy going to the gym and am working my way up to running a 5k again after a back injury earlier this year.
Q: What strategies do you use to engage scientists and researchers in the design process and gather meaningful input?
A: I try to always present information in different formats that can be easier to absorb and respond too. It’s easy to forget that not everyone can look at a floor plan and see the building in their head. I like to use different graphics to illustrate things such as path of travel, utilizing 3D images and models to give them a sense of the spaces we are designing for them. I like to think of it as not just a presentation but a conversation about what they are reviewing.
