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The sustainably focused design promotes the use of healthy materials, avoiding products identified in the client’s prohibited materials list, which includes materials labelled as acutely toxic, serious health hazard, Persistent Bio-Accumulative (PBA), and the use of Chromium VI, PVC, Rayon, Asbestos, Mercury, Lead, Cadmium or other heavy metals.

Initially built as a large office complex for one company, we have been working on dividing it up to house nine separate clients.This has complex implications for mechanical and electrical services.

For obvious technical reasons, each client cannot be serviced separately, so each one has to be monitored separately for energy, airflow and water usage..The existing plant was 20 years old, and at the end of its useful life.But you can’t simply replace an old plant with a new one – mechanical and electrical engineering machines are so much more advanced and efficient now so some take up less space, but others are larger due to the need to reduce energy (for example, air-handling units).

We have taken the opportunity to reconfigure the building to some extent.But in the case of the air handling units, the building was more or less built around them so it was difficult and financially unviable to remove them.

So we have taken a mixed replace and refurbish approach to the plant machinery..

But the building management system is all brand new.Understanding why a piece of laboratory equipment is requested can determine if it’s necessary, or if its process can be combined with another piece of equipment and managed from a user perspective.

This can help not only reduce capital cost on purchasing laboratory equipment, but also operating costs on the services required for that piece of kit.An example of this is reducing the number of dust booths in a space by combining the processes of two dust booths into one..

Generating and maintaining an up-to-date client laboratory equipment list with all requirements is a lifeline for any laboratory designer, as it becomes the gospel for all aspects of the laboratory design.Many of the causes of delays and cost overrun with laboratory design come from not having a comprehensive laboratory equipment list stating the services requirements and specialist requirements.