Lab building renovation: Critical decision-making criteria for optimal project outcomes

Renovating existing buildings for research laboratories is often approached as a design problem, when in reality it is a decision-making problem with significant implications for cost, schedule, and research performance. This presentation reframes laboratory renovations as a front-loaded planning effort, emphasizing the importance of early, objective evaluation of a building’s suitability for specific research needs. Using a lab-planning–driven framework, session leaders demonstrate how measurable criteria—such as structural systems, vibration performance, space geometry and floorplate width, column spacing, floor-to-floor heights, and MEP capacity—can be used to inform early go/no-go decisions. By assessing these factors at the outset, they illustrate how project teams reduce risk, avoid costly late-stage redesigns, and align research ambitions with the physical realities of existing facilities. They examine case studies showing how informed early planning decisions have the greatest impact on project success, transforming lab renovations from reactive problem-solving exercises into strategic, data-driven investments in research infrastructure.