Operational Support

Space Allocation in Laboratories

Laboratories are complex and expensive places to set up and use. It is very important when designing your facilities that all legislative requirements are taken into consideration.

There are basic requirements for compliance with external legiislation - The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare regulations) and other specilaised regulations depending upon your activities for example: The Genetically modified organisms - containment of use regulations (GMO).

The Workplace regulations define the minimum space allocation in the workplace as 4.6m2/person based upon the GMO and ACGM. This corresponds to 4.6m2 plus an estimated 5.4m2 to allow for laboratory furniture, fume cupboards, incubators etc. The standard has been recommended in order to allow work to be carried out in an uncongested environment and hence avoid risk of loss of containment. Typically 11m2/person has been adopted as the standard for bioscience laboratory areas.

Thus each individual working in a bioscience laboratory would be allocated 16m2 of space which is made up of 11m2 Lab space and 5m2 Office.

In Chemistry Laboratories a much greater floor plate is taken up with fume cupboards and other containment areas so the minimum recommendation for Chemistry space is 25m2/person - 20m2 Lab space and 5m2 office/wroteup soace.

ScienceGen has wide experience in optimisation of science and office facilities and has delivered over $4M savings for clients by strategically and operationally optimising the workplace.

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