The Conversations That Make or Break a Research Building

The earliest planning meetings for a new laboratory or research building rarely generate the excitement of a ribbon cutting or the unveiling of a state-of-the-art facility. Yet long before architects produce renderings or contractors mobilize on site, the questions asked—and the conversations held—during programming can determine whether a laboratory supports scientific discovery for decades or becomes an expensive collection of missed opportunities.

Too often, programming meetings become exercises in reviewing square footage, budgets, and equipment lists. Those discussions are important, but they rarely determine whether a laboratory will perform well five, 10, or even 30 years after it opens. The real opportunity lies in understanding how scientists work, what challenges they face today, and how a building can support discoveries that haven't even been imagined yet.

According to Z Smith, principal and director of sustainability and building performance at EskewDumezRipple, the most successful laboratory projects aren't the ones that simply deliver everything a client asks for. They're the ones that uncover what researchers, instructors, lab managers, and facility teams genuinely need, then balance those needs with long-term performance, operational efficiency, and realistic budgets.

For architects, lab planners, engineers, and contractors, that means asking better questions and listening more carefully. For university leaders, principal investigators, lab managers, and other end users, it means becoming active participants in the design process rather than assuming the project team already knows what matters most.

Understand how the building will actually be used

One of the first conversations on any university science building project should be about understanding the difference between spaces designed to support research and those intended for instruction.

“I think there's a clear distinction that has to be made between enabling research and enabling instruction,” Smith says.

Although many university science buildings combine classrooms, teaching laboratories, and research laboratories under one roof, those spaces serve different purposes. Teaching environments must support foundational scientific education while accommodating students with varying levels of preparation and experience. Research spaces, meanwhile, require the flexibility and infrastructure to support discovery, innovation, and scientific work that may evolve significantly over the life of the building.

For teaching spaces, safety is a particularly important consideration as universities adapt to changing student preparation levels. “The way around that isn’t to not teach, but it’s to set things up so that all the learning can occur while minimizing safety concerns,” Smith says. Thoughtful planning can create environments where students gain hands-on experience while faculty and researchers have the advanced facilities they need.

At the same time, universities often face competing priorities when planning a new facility. “It’s this balance [between] what’s driving why there’s a new building is often the instruction, but what the departments all want is the new research stuff,” Smith says.

The instructional mission may help justify funding for a new building, while departments are focused on creating research environments that attract faculty, support grant-funded work, and advance institutional goals. Recognizing those competing needs early in programming helps project teams determine where investments will have the greatest long-term value.

“There’s a big opportunity that we’ve learned in our work with universities, which is that if you are incredibly clear about the way they’re teaching today and the way they would like to teach in the future, you can produce a facility that helps them along and is often cheaper to build and cheaper to operate,” Smith says.

Successfully balancing research and instruction begins by understanding how the building will actually be used—and by gathering input from more than just department leadership.

Listen beyond department leadership

Many programming efforts rely heavily on department chairs and principal investigators. While those voices are essential, Smith argues they're only part of the story.

One of the biggest breakthroughs on Louisiana State University's Interdisciplinary Science Building came from expanding the conversation beyond faculty leadership.

“We spent time speaking with the instructors, not just the professors, the head professors, but the graduate student TAs, who know day in, day out, and the staff who prep the daily experiments about what they actually do, the quantities of chemicals they actually use, the typical issues that they're finding with students, how students mess up, and how to make it less likely for students to mess up,” Smith says.

Those conversations revealed that instructional laboratories were using a much narrower range of chemicals—and in much smaller quantities—than many people assumed. That seemingly simple discovery had significant design implications. By better understanding actual teaching practices, the design team was able to rethink traditional teaching laboratories, reduce unnecessary infrastructure, and redirect savings toward strengthening research facilities.

Perhaps equally important, the process built trust.

“We heard you say this, did we hear that correctly?” became an ongoing dialogue throughout the project, notes Smith. “It's tremendously empowering for those instructors to be listened to for a change, because they know a lot of what they're trying to overcome and work around and what they're duct taping to get past.”

For laboratory managers and university stakeholders, that's an important reminder: don't assume your daily operational frustrations are too small to mention. What feels like a minor inconvenience may reveal a systemic design problem that can be solved in a new facility.

Don't recreate yesterday's laboratory

One of the biggest mistakes institutions make is using an aging facility as the template for its replacement. Smith observes that it’s easy for universities to simply ask for something close to what they already have, but better. “What they want is a building that's like the building they already have, but actually works,” he says.

The problem is that research itself changes much faster than buildings do. By the time planning, funding, design, construction, commissioning, and occupancy are complete, four or five years may have passed. The grant opportunities, technologies, and scientific priorities that inspired the project may have already evolved.

Rather than designing around today's equipment lists alone, Smith encourages institutions to focus on a more important question: What is your current facility preventing you from doing?

“It's research you could be doing, but you're being limited by your facilities,” he says.

Answering that question helps separate infrastructure that truly enables future discovery from features that simply recreate outdated assumptions.

Observe what researchers actually do

Even experienced researchers don't always remember exactly how they use their laboratories. That's why Smith recommends supplementing interviews with direct observation.

“What happens is merely reproducing the facility design from 25 years ago, but with modern stuff that actually works isn't going to be enough,” Smith says. “It's better to go and try to instrument what's really being used. This is where observational studies can help, so you can interview people.”

In other words, don't rely solely on what people remember—observe how they actually work. Instead of relying solely on recollections, project teams should spend time walking through existing laboratories, watching workflows unfold, and documenting how equipment, storage, and support spaces are actually used.

“It’s so much more revealing to spend some time just walking around with them, finding out what they really do, and ground truthing,” Smith says.

That “ground truthing” often uncovers workflow patterns, equipment usage, storage challenges, and operational bottlenecks that would never emerge during a conference-room discussion.

Another valuable exercise is stepping outside your own institution. Smith recommends asking researchers a simple question: Which universities are doing the kind of work you admire?

“In your field of study, name the institutions that are doing the best work,” he says. Then visit those facilities. Find out what researchers believe works exceptionally well—and just as importantly, what sits unused.

Many universities naturally compare themselves with wealthier peer institutions. But Smith suggests looking beyond impressive equipment purchases to identify the design decisions that genuinely improved research productivity. Those conversations often reveal ideas that can be adapted regardless of project size or budget.

Flexibility isn't about adding everything

Few words appear more frequently in laboratory programming than flexibility. Yet Smith believes it's also one of the industry's most misunderstood concepts.

Research is inherently unpredictable, but designing for every imaginable future scenario can quickly become prohibitively expensive.

To illustrate the point, Smith compares laboratory flexibility to an SUV that's built for extreme off-road driving. Most owners never use those capabilities, yet they continue paying for them through higher purchase prices, fuel consumption, and maintenance. The same principle applies to laboratory infrastructure.

“We know that infinite flexibility comes at infinite cost,” he says.

Installing extra fume hoods, oversized HVAC systems, or additional utility capacity “just in case” doesn't simply increase first costs. Those systems also consume energy, require maintenance, and can make future renovations more difficult.

Instead, Smith advocates designing buildings that can evolve thoughtfully by reserving space and utility connections for future expansion rather than installing infrastructure that may never be needed.

“There's no sense in your whole building carrying that capacity,” he says.

The goal is strategic flexibility—not unlimited flexibility.

Build for adaptation instead of overbuilding

Smith points to the New Orleans BioInnovation Center as an example of designing for change without overbuilding. The incubator supports startup companies with research needs that vary dramatically from tenant to tenant. Rather than constructing every laboratory with maximum infrastructure from day one, the project reserved space for future expansion.

The design included one fume hood per laboratory bay while providing ductwork and space for a second if needed. A few tenants “have popped in another fume hood, but most have not,” Smith says.

That single decision reduced initial construction costs, lowered ongoing energy use, and still allowed future tenants to expand when necessary.

The building also incorporated shared instrumentation laboratories so startups could access sophisticated analytical equipment without every company purchasing duplicate systems. By sharing expensive resources, tenants gained access to advanced technology while avoiding unnecessary capital expenditures.

Another innovation was the building's individualized ventilation strategy. Rather than applying a single ventilation standard across the facility, each laboratory compartment can independently adjust its ventilation rate based on the type of work being performed.

As Smith explains, the philosophy is “all the ventilation you need, but only where and when you need it.”

Matching ventilation to actual research activities allows facilities to reduce energy consumption while maintaining appropriate safety levels for each tenant.

Bring every stakeholder into the conversation early

Programming discussions shouldn't involve only architects and researchers. Environmental health and safety professionals, facility managers, maintenance personnel, teaching staff, laboratory managers, and building operations teams all bring valuable perspectives that can improve the final design.

Smith emphasizes that environmental health and safety professionals are essential partners because their primary responsibility is protecting occupants.

“They get in trouble if somebody got hurt,” he says.

At the same time, laboratory projects must balance safety with operational simplicity and realistic budgets.

“Can we structure the building and the systems in ways that encourage people to do the right thing, and kind of make it hard to do the dangerous thing?” Smith asks.

Including those stakeholders early makes it easier to develop solutions everyone can support instead of revisiting fundamental design decisions later in the project.

Think about building performance from the very beginning

Some of the most important sustainability decisions happen long before mechanical systems are selected. Smith points to concepts such as air cascade—strategically locating laboratories, offices, and classrooms so air can move efficiently through the building—as examples of decisions that begin during the earliest massing studies.

“It's a notion that starts right at the beginning, when you're just starting to sketch,” he says.

Those early planning decisions can reduce both first costs and long-term energy consumption while supporting safe laboratory operations.

The lesson is straightforward: sustainability isn't something added after programming. It's embedded in the earliest conversations about how the building should function.

Better conversations create better laboratories

Ultimately, Smith believes successful laboratory projects are less about having perfect answers than asking better questions.

Rather than simply accepting a list of requested features, project teams should investigate how people work, what limits their success today, and what changes will deliver the greatest long-term value.

Likewise, researchers and laboratory managers shouldn't hesitate to describe their daily frustrations, explain workflow challenges, visit peer facilities, or question assumptions carried over from older buildings. Scientists sometimes assume operational frustrations are simply “the way things are,” but those frustrations often provide designers with the information they need to improve the next generation of laboratories.

The most effective projects aren't created by architects working in isolation or clients passively approving drawings. They emerge through continuous dialogue, careful observation, and a willingness to challenge long-held assumptions.

“It's this mix of talking to people and actually listening and being aware of how technology plus good design choices can lead to facilities that cost less to build at the beginning and cost less to operate and keep people safer, because that's ultimately what it's all about,” Smith says.

When those conversations happen early—and include everyone who will ultimately use, operate, and maintain the building—they do far more than shape a successful construction project. They lay the foundation for research buildings that not only meet today's needs, but continue adapting to tomorrow's discoveries.