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Plan a life sciences laboratory as an owner-led project that connects the science to a safe, buildable, operable facility. Start by defining the work, people, equipment, workflows, risks, and operating needs; confirm which codes and funding requirements apply; test the brief against the site, building systems, cost, and future use; then carry the approved requirements through design reviews, construction controls, commissioning, and handover. A room list alone is not a sufficient brief.
1. Define the project before designing the building
The first planning task is to explain what the facility must enable and how the owner will know it is working. Bring scientific leadership, likely users, facilities and operations staff, safety professionals, architects, engineers, and construction expertise into the conversation early. Include the people who will operate and maintain the building, not just those who will occupy it.
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Describe the work and the people doing it
Set down the research or laboratory services the project must support, the expected users and headcount, and how those needs may change. Describe the types of work, key procedures, hours of operation, equipment, and the movement of people, materials, samples, and waste. Identify support functions as well as laboratory rooms: storage, preparation, offices, staff areas, receiving, and other functions the project actually requires.
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Record equipment and utility demands as part of the work description. Equipment can affect space, access, power, cooling, exhaust, controls, maintenance access, and delivery routes. At the brief stage, identify what is known, what remains to be confirmed, who owns each open decision, and when it must be resolved. Do not treat an unverified equipment assumption as a settled design input.
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Set outcomes, constraints, and priorities
Capture target occupancy, security expectations, growth or contraction assumptions, operating capability, funding, budget, schedule, delivery method, and known site constraints. Distinguish requirements that are essential to the mission or compliance from preferences that could be traded if cost, site, or schedule makes them difficult. Agree who can approve decisions and how the project will handle changes to the brief.
Use an Owner’s Project Requirements document (OPR), or an equivalent requirements brief, to record measurable performance outcomes and how they will be checked later. A useful requirement is more than a desired feature: it should tell the team what outcome matters, who confirms it, and at what point in design, construction, or commissioning it can be verified. The CDC/APHL Laboratory Facility Construction and Major Renovations Guidelines describes planning as a balance among safety, security, efficiency, cost effectiveness, present and future research needs, and operating standards. The BMBL sustainability appendix also advises capturing stakeholder requirements and allowing for future changes in uses or sizes.
Keep the brief useful as the project changes by recording the basis for key requirements: the stakeholder, operational need, assumption, or risk that supports each one. This makes it easier to judge later proposals against the project’s actual priorities instead of treating every requested feature as equally essential. The brief should also identify the owner’s capability to operate the facility, since a design that depends on staffing or maintenance arrangements the institution cannot provide may not be practical.
2. Establish risk, jurisdiction, and applicable requirements
Do not settle a laboratory type, containment assumption, or design safeguard by copying another building’s label. First establish what work will occur and which authorities, policies, and standards govern this project. A laboratory building may need to address biological, chemical, fire, radiation, occupational, security, environmental, and operational risks, depending on its protocols and location.
Assess actual protocols and hazards
Describe the agents or materials, procedures, quantities, equipment, and people involved. Have qualified biosafety and other relevant safety professionals assess the hazards and identify necessary safeguards. The CDC and NIH describe Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories (BMBL), sixth edition, as advisory best-practice guidance, not a regulation; its central principle is protocol-driven risk assessment. A biosafety level should follow the actual assessment and applicable authority, not a generic building type or project title.
That distinction matters to the building brief. Risk assessment can affect access, work practices, room relationships, equipment, services, and operational procedures, but a building label by itself does not establish what safeguards are needed. Record the assessment basis and the responsible safety reviewers so that design decisions can be checked against the intended work as it becomes more specific.
Map codes, funding terms, and institutional rules
Before fixing design assumptions, identify the applicable building and fire codes, accessibility requirements, environmental approvals, institutional standards, funding terms, and research-specific regulations. Their scopes differ: design guidance, funding conditions, institutional policy, and law are not interchangeable. Confirm applicability with the project’s qualified design and compliance professionals for the project’s jurisdiction and funding arrangement.
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The NIH Office of Research Facilities lists DRM Revision 2.1 dated 2024-08-02 and a desk guide updated 2025-07-01; its page, updated 2025-07-21, says the comprehensive manual update is proceeding chapter by chapter. For a project within its scope, use the current full manual and applicable local requirements rather than relying on an old summary. For projects outside that scope, determine the controlling requirements independently.
3. Turn the brief into a functional program
Once the mission, users, risks, and governing requirements are understood well enough, translate them into a functional program: the types of spaces needed, their areas as developed by the project team, adjacencies, workflows, equipment and user loads, support functions, circulation, and any separation or access-control needs identified by risk assessment. The program should explain why spaces relate to one another, not merely count rooms.
Map activities and adjacencies
Trace how people and materials move through typical work, including receipt, storage, preparation, research activity, support, and waste handling where those steps apply. Identify points where the work requires proximity and where it requires separation. Check how staff, equipment, materials, and maintenance access interact; a layout that is convenient for one movement can create conflicts with another.
Make the assumptions visible. For each important activity or equipment item, record its users, operating pattern, support needs, and known constraints. If the science or equipment selection is still evolving, mark that uncertainty and set a decision date rather than silently locking an assumption into the plan.
Test the site and building systems
Assess the site, existing utilities and building services, resilience needs, construction logistics, and possible phasing. Establish whether the project is new construction, a renovation, or a major modernization, and identify constraints that affect access, continuity of adjacent operations, or the ability to expand. Review services capacity against the program and anticipated equipment rather than assuming the site can support the proposed use.
Bring facilities and operations staff into the site and systems review. They can help identify maintenance access, operational staffing, serviceability, and lifecycle implications that are easy to miss if the program is judged only by room function. Record what must be verified by surveys, engineering analysis, or other project-specific work; the planning guidance does not supply universal values for those decisions.
4. Compare options against project priorities
There is no universal best layout or site solution. Compare credible options against priorities set in the brief, and document why the selected option best serves the project. The CDC/APHL guide and BMBL sustainability appendix support adapting a design to the specific project and keeping it adaptable rather than copying another facility.
| Decision area | Questions to test |
|---|---|
| Research workflow | Do adjacencies and circulation support the work, users, materials, and waste routes identified in the program? |
| Hazard and security controls | Does the option respond to the project’s risk assessment and access needs? |
| Services and maintainability | Can building services support the program and equipment, and can staff inspect, operate, and maintain them? |
| Flexibility and expansion | Can the facility accommodate plausible changes in use, equipment, headcount, or future growth without undermining current operations? |
| Cost and operations | How do initial and life-cycle costs, operating staffing, and maintenance responsibilities compare? |
| Environmental performance | How do energy, water use, and indoor environmental quality compare with the project’s documented requirements? |
| Delivery and compliance | Can the option be phased and built within the project’s schedule and logistics constraints, while meeting applicable code and funding requirements? |
For sustainability and indoor environmental quality, test the performance targets rather than assuming that tighter controls are automatically better. Appendix L of BMBL’s sixth edition repeats a figure that an overly narrow acceptable humidity range can increase energy use by as much as 25%. The passage does not identify the underlying study’s date or details, so treat this as a caution about the potential trade-off, not as a current project benchmark or a universal prediction.
Do not use a single cost-per-square-foot figure, schedule, or area ratio as though it applies to all life sciences laboratories. No generally applicable figure is established here. Costs and duration depend on geography, laboratory type, containment, equipment, utility infrastructure, scope, market, and delivery strategy. Ask the design team and cost consultant for project-specific estimates, state the assumptions behind them, and update them at agreed phase gates.
5. Develop and review the design in decision gates
Use the approved program and OPR to guide the transition from planning into coordinated design documents. Engage professionals experienced in the relevant laboratory type, make user participation routine, and define decision authority before detailed design creates expensive assumptions. The National Academies’ 2000 report Laboratory Design, Construction, and Renovation: Participants, Process, and Product offers a durable process framework organized around predesign, design and documentation, construction, and postconstruction. It is useful for project roles and process, not as a current code or engineering specification.
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Predesign: confirm the basis
Before advancing, review whether the project case, requirements, risk assessment, site information, functional program, funding constraints, budget, and schedule are sufficiently developed to guide design. Resolve conflicts among stakeholder needs or document how they will be decided. Agree how requirements will be traced into documents and how proposed changes will be evaluated.
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At each design review, assess functionality, safety, code compliance, equipment integration, utilities, maintainability, cost, and the fit between the drawings and the approved program. Users should review how the proposed spaces support work; facilities and operations staff should review serviceability and operating implications; safety professionals should review applicable controls; and the design and construction team should identify coordination and delivery risks.
Review changes to the budget and schedule alongside design decisions, not after them. Where an option does not meet a requirement, either revise the design or use the project’s formal decision process to amend the requirement. Keep an accountable record of the decision, rationale, approver, and consequences for other requirements.
Construction readiness: verify what the documents promise
Before construction begins, make sure contract documents communicate the intended scope and performance clearly enough for procurement and field execution. Agree on responsibilities and workflows for submittals, requests for information (RFIs), design clarifications, field changes, cost and schedule impacts, and approvals. The National Academies’ process guidance emphasizes defined roles, document review, budget discipline, change-order procedures, commissioning, and an owner stewardship plan.
6. Keep construction changes tied to the approved requirements
Construction can expose conflicts between documents, site conditions, equipment needs, and the way the laboratory will operate. A change that appears local may affect workflow, hazards, utilities, controls, maintenance, or future flexibility. Keep laboratory users, designers, facilities, safety, commissioning, and construction representatives connected so that the right people can assess impacts before a decision is made.
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- Assess the effects. Identify implications for function, risk controls, code or funding compliance, building services, cost, schedule, operations, and maintenance.
- Route it to the right decision-makers. Follow the agreed process for design clarification, RFI response, submittal review, or change approval; identify who has authority to accept the outcome.
- Update the project record. Keep the approved decision, affected documents, cost or schedule consequences, and any revised requirement linked together.
- Check implementation. Confirm that the approved resolution is reflected in coordinated documents and completed work, and note any commissioning or training implications.
The CDC/APHL guide, published 2019-05-01, is a general process overview and says it should be supplemented with laboratory-specific standards and expert advice. Use it as process guidance, not as a substitute for technical review or project-specific decisions.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.7. Plan commissioning and handover before the end of construction
Commissioning is how the owner checks that installed systems and controls meet documented requirements and can operate as intended. Define commissioning responsibilities and verification needs early enough for the work to be planned, documented, and completed before acceptance. The National Academies report specifically recommends commissioning and an owner stewardship plan.
Prepare acceptance evidence
Plan for tests, controls verification, issue tracking and resolution, operating and maintenance information, as-built documents, and the records needed to show that requirements have been met. Tie checks back to the OPR or equivalent brief. Where performance or an installation does not meet the agreed requirement, assign responsibility and track corrective work through closure rather than treating an open issue as a complete handover.
Transfer the facility to its operators
Include training for the people responsible for operating and maintaining the building, and make sure they receive usable documentation and understand remaining responsibilities. Assign ongoing ownership and budget for maintenance and operations. The facility is not fully delivered merely because construction work is substantially complete: the owner also needs the information, trained staff, and stewardship arrangements to operate it.
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References and their limits
- NIH Design Requirements Manual: detailed requirements for NIH facility work within its scope; the manual is being updated chapter by chapter, so confirm the current version and project applicability.
- NIH Grants Policy Statement: the cited code and manual requirements apply to NIH grant-supported construction or modernization, not automatically to other projects.
- CDC/NIH BMBL, sixth edition: advisory biosafety best-practice guidance centered on protocol-driven risk assessment; it does not replace law, codes, institutional review, or qualified project-specific assessment. The CDC page is dated 2026-03-18.
- CDC/APHL construction and major renovations guide: a general process guide published 2019-05-01 that calls for laboratory-specific standards and expert advice.
- National Academies process report: published in 2000; useful for roles, review, change control, commissioning, and stewardship, but not a current technical code.
For a more technical reference, ASHRAE’s Laboratory Design Guide, 2nd Edition covers planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance, laboratory air systems, commissioning, sustainability, computational fluid dynamics, and life-cycle costs. It is a purchasable reference; confirm that the edition and listing are current before seeking it out. The ISPE Good Practice Guide: Quality Laboratory Facilities is a narrower paid guide for GxP-regulated quality laboratories supporting pharmaceutical production, so it is relevant only if that describes the project. These references can supplement, but do not replace, applicable requirements or qualified project-specific expertise.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should a laboratory building brief include?
Describe the research or services, users and headcount, procedures, equipment and utility needs, workflows, support functions, operating hours, security, growth assumptions, site constraints, funding, budget, schedule, delivery method, and operating capability. Record measurable outcomes, distinguish requirements from preferences, and specify how and when important requirements will be checked.
How do I choose the right biosafety level for a laboratory building?
Do not choose it from a generic building type or title. Qualified biosafety professionals should assess the actual protocols, agents or materials, procedures, quantities, equipment, and people, then identify safeguards under the applicable authority. BMBL is advisory best-practice guidance, not itself a regulation.
Which codes and standards apply to a life sciences laboratory project?
That depends on jurisdiction, funding, institutional policy, and the work. Identify applicable building and fire codes, accessibility requirements, environmental approvals, institutional standards, funding terms, and research-specific rules with qualified project professionals. NIH grant-supported construction or modernization is a specific case with NIH manual and state/local-code requirements; it is not a universal rule.
How much does a life sciences laboratory building cost, and how long does it take?
No generally applicable cost-per-square-foot figure, schedule, or area ratio is established here. Cost and duration depend on geography, laboratory type, containment, equipment, utility infrastructure, scope, market, and delivery strategy. Obtain project-specific estimates and update them at agreed design phase gates.
When should commissioning and operations planning begin?
Plan them before construction is complete, and define responsibilities and verification needs early enough for testing, issue resolution, documentation, and training to be completed before acceptance. Assign ongoing maintenance and operations responsibility and budget as part of the owner’s stewardship plan.
Which references are useful for planning a laboratory facility?
Use the current NIH Design Requirements Manual only when the project falls within its scope, BMBL for advisory biosafety guidance, and the CDC/APHL guide as a general process overview to supplement with laboratory-specific standards and expert advice. The National Academies report is a process framework rather than current technical code. ASHRAE’s Laboratory Design Guide is a technical reference; the ISPE guide is specifically for GxP-regulated quality laboratories.
The Bottom Line
Successful laboratory planning starts with a clear owner’s brief grounded in science, users, risk, operations, and applicable requirements. Test that brief against the site, systems, cost, and future needs; review design at decision gates; control changes against the approved requirements; and plan commissioning, training, documentation, and stewardship before handover.
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