With academic research funding either flat or slumping, it’s time to rethink current laboratory design standards. Concurrent with the funding slide is a hike in both direct costs (salaries, for example) and indirect research costs like spending on facilities operation, equipment, and labor. At the same time, the demand for space continues to increase unabated.

The Sandler Neurosciences Center at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), is a developer-built facility created through innovative planning, development, design, and research. A public-private partnership—an alternative to the traditional design-bid-build model—applies private-sector efficiencies to an institutional project. Benefits include faster delivery, lower costs to build and operate, and reducing institutional risk by shifting responsibility for construction and ongoing maintenance to the developer.

Getting the planning team on board with Lean project delivery from the outset of a project can net huge savings in both capital expenditures and long-term operating costs. A California hospital, for example, saved $700,000 and 550 sf per bed, and the project was completed 25 percent ahead of schedule, a level of efficiency that can be achieved in other industries, as well.