Clean facilities get a new lease on life

Clean facilities get a new lease on life

How can smaller operations make existing facilities fit their budgets and their processes with renovations and upgrades?

By Thomas E. Hansz, AIA, Facility Planning & Resources, Inc.

As nanoscale research and analysis is becoming increasingly more and more prevalent in today’s economy, we have seen a significant increase in the need for small-scale clean laboratories. This need is expressed in manufacturing, corporate research centers, and academic research facilities. Whether used for composite materials for cars and packaging materials; in paints, optics, biological and chemical detection systems, or antiseptics; or for cancer therapeutics, drug delivery, imaging, diagnostics, and monitoring applications, new clean laboratories are in demand as never before.

Many times these clean labs are renovations within existing facilities. Recently we have found that some companies and institutions are looking at leased facilities for new controlled laboratories. To complicate matters, some are even considering leased facilities that were never intended for laboratory use, let alone for cleanrooms. For the most part, renovating existing facilities and upgrading leased facilities have many issues in common and this article will touch upon some of them.

Figure: A clean laboratory space prior to equipment and work stations installed. Photo courtesy of Facility Planning & Resources.

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