JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
NEW IDEAS FROM INDUSTRIAL LABORATORY DESIGN' C. F. RASSWEILER Johns-Manville Corporation, New York
THELAST 20 years have seen a tremendous growth in the size of industrial research organizations, hut it is only recently that proper attention has been given t o the problem of providing facilities commensurate with the importance of this work. Some notable indnstrial laboratories have been built, but most industrial research work has been done in converted warehouses or factory buildings, and even the new indnstrial research laboratories have tended to follow traditional collegiate patterns. Gradually, .however, the amount of money spent on industrial research has made it imperative that special facilities be provided to insure the most efficientutilization of the money spent. As a result, there is at the present time a tiemendous program of active and contemplated construction of industrial research laboratories. More important than the size of this program is the fact that an entirely new concept of laboratory construction has been evolved. Industrial research has demanded simplicity, versatility of use for the space provided, and ease of further expansion. The architects have met this demand by making a new approach to the problem and most of the new laboratories are being designed to conform to these new ideas. This -paper will make no attempt to apply these new - ~
' Presented before the Division of Chemical Education a t the 111th meeting of the American Chemical Society in Atlantic City, April 14-18,1947.
City
ideas to the design of university laboratories, nor will it attempt a complete review of the basis for industrial laboratory design. However, there are certain ideas involved in the modern thinking about industrial laboratories which may stimulate the thinking of those designing university-laboratories'and some elements of modern industrial design may be convertible to nniversity use. The new approach to the construction of industrial research laboratories has been pursued along two lines: first, the concept of modular design in which a lahoraatory becomes simply an assembly of standard work unit,s; and second, the adaptation to laboratory design of certain practi~eswhich have become established in large office building construction. The new thinking regarding laboratory design starts with the idea that laboratory work even of widely different types requires much the same space and facilities. I t should therefore be possible to design a standard work un,it or module which could be used for a wide variety of different purposes by simply changing service outlets and furniture. The design of a laboratory, therefore, bkcomes simply the design of the most adaptable unit or module, the grouping of a sufficient number of these modules into a simple building, and the providing of supplementary facilities such as semiworks, cafeterias, libraries, etc. When such an approach is first suggested to a laboratory organization they generally consider their work as being too spe-
JULY, 1947
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cialized for such a standardized scheme, but laboratorie* at opposite benches do not interfere with each other, of this sort have proved so successful in practice that and real spaciousness is achieved if they are far enough the standardized module design has become the basis apart so that a third man can pass between them withof almost all new construction of large industrial laho- out disturbing their activities. Module lengths vary ratories. from 20 to 32 feet. In determining the length it is Rather general agreement has been reached regarding desirable to provide clear space within the partitions in t.he shape of the standard module for industrial use, multiples of 2 feet since standard furniture and cabinets although there is still considerable difference of usually come in 4-foot or 2-foot lengths. Sometimes opinion regarding the most desirable size. The stand- two different module lengths are provided by using an ard module is a slot with work benches down each side, off-center corridor. In this case a single row of cent,er a window a t one end, and an access door from a cor- building supports is provided with the corridor running ridor at the other. This is in contrast with the old idea along one side of the supports. This gives long modules on one side of the corridor and short modules on the other. In older to convert a working module readily from one use to. another i t is customary industrial practice to w e a variety of standardized benrh and table units. These units are available in 2-foot and &foot lengths and it is relatively simple to substitute one type of hench unit for another when the module is converted from one type of use to a different type of operation. To achieve complete versatility of use for the space provided, industrial laboratory design has adopted the relocatable partitions which have hecome almost standard for modern office building construct,ion. These partitions are ordinarily spoken of as "movable," alt,hongh they are not movable in the same. sense as sliding or folding partitions. However, they are so Figure 1. A Laboratom May Contain One. Two. Thrm.. or More Work unit.. const,mcted that properly trained person'nel can take them down and re-erect them in a verr short space of of considering a lahoratory as a room with benches time wit,hout any of the mess or confusion involved in around the walls and an island bench in the center. relocating even the simplest plaster or tile partitions. Some people favor a module with a work bench don-n They are of two general types, the first. being steel one side of the aisle and storage cabinets on the other, panels which are set between metal posts anchored t,o hut most designers believe sufficient &orage space can the ceiling and to the floor, and t,he second being asbe provided below bench level or in supplementary cabin& replacing a limited number of hench units. A lahoratory can consist of a single module surrounded by walls, or two, three, or an indefinite number of modules may be included in a single room. An effort is made to include within the slot or module the facilities which the worker will require so as to minimize the amonnt of traveling he will have to do from his work area. and every effort is made to avoid making i t necessar?. or convenient forother people to pasn throygh his working space (Figures 1 and 2). The size of the standard module varies considerably with the nature of the work to he carried on and the willingness to spend money to increase the convenience and the spaciousness of the lahoratory. The absolute minimum width would include a 31/rfoot aisle with 2-foot. benches on either side, which, with partitions, would give a module width of 8 feet. This, however, is too cramped for good practice, and 9 feet in width from partition center t,o partition center, or from benrh back to bench back, is the minimum of good practice even when on& small articles are to be handled. A 10foot width is considered better practice and 11 feet is desirable where bulky articles are involved. In any ca.w t,he aisle should he wide enongh so the men working
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
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hestos-cement sheets hung on lightweight, met,al studs held in place by metal channels attached to t,he ceiling and to the floor. The metal partitions are supplied with a baked-on enamel finish which can be repainted in place as required, and the asbestos-cement sheets may he either painted in place orleft in their natural color. Integrally colored asbestos-cement sheet,s have been developed which provide permanent decoration without any need for finishing, but production has not yet reached the point where this material is availahle for general use.
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bring individual risers up the outside wall between the windows so that they can be tapped off from the outside wall to provide facilities along the backs of the benches. The second is similar except that the risers come up shaftasa t the intersection of the module limits with the interior corridor walls. The third and more traditional system is to run the main service pipes under the floor slah and to tap off up through the floor through floor plates.or sleeves. In this latter case, to avoid the bad appearance and difficult house cleaning of exposed piping, industrial laboratory design has borrowed another standard procedure from large office building construrtion-namely, the use of hung metal ceilings. These are simply suspended false ceilings carried on a light met,alframework wbich conceal all of the overhead piping and duct work. The actual false ceiling is composed of 12 X %-inch light metal perforated or solid pans which simply slip into the metal framework and can be quickly removed and replaced so as to give ready access to the miscellaneous piping, wiring, and duct, work which they are used to conceal. If these pans are perforated and fitted with sound-absorbing pads, they become a highly effective acoustical ceiling. These ceilings are designed so that t,roffers can be subst,itnted for some of the metal pans, providing recessed fluorescent lighting which can be placed anywhere it is desired in the ceiling with the wiring concealed between the floor slab and the hung ceiling (Figure 3). There are a variety of ways in which the services may be run from the outlet boxes in the floor or in the end partitions to the proper outlets along the benches. If asbestos-cement partitions are used (Figure 4), the piping can be carried in the all itself behind easily xemovable access plates and a single line can then he t,ap-
Reeassed Lighting Fittsd into Hung Ceiling
The most common use of these movable partitions is to vary the grouping of work modules into rooms of different sizes. For this purpose it is only necessary to remove and relocate the cross partitions between fixed exterior walls and fixed corridor walls. If it, is desirable to relocate the doors in the corridors, it is possible to remodel the corridor wall as well, although t,his can be avoided by providing a separate door in the original corridor wall for each module, so that the relocating of the cross partitions does not upset the individual access to each working space. The movable partitions can also be used, if desired, to divide a module into smallel. rooms for specialized purposes. Modern practice provid& gas, \rater, anti n \ ~ i d e variety of other services on both sides of each module 01.. in other words, between each adjacent module. I t is standard practice to make all of the potentially desired services available a t each location but. to pipe to the benches only those which are actually needed. There are three more or less standard ways of carrying these services to the point from which t,hey can be tapped off to serve the working modules. One is t'o rigvle4. have the main distributing feeders in the basement and
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JULY, 1947
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ped off to supply both sides of the partition. Another method is to attach a pipe rack to the partition to carry the pipes below the level of the bench tops. This pipe rack has a top corresponding to the top of the movable furniture so that bench units can be placed and removed without disturbing the piping or the service outlets. This method of distribution cuts down somewhat the storage space in the cabinets and requires moving the furniture to work on the piping, but it is the common practice with metal partitions and when benches are placed back to back without an intervening partition. A laboratory designed by the duplication of standard work modules using movable furniture, relocatable partitions, and providing a variation of possible services has almost complete versatility of use for the space provided. For example, three work modules might be. used as one large laboratory, might be subdivided into three small individual laboratories, might be used as two small laboratories with a common equipment room between which might be either a single space or a space easily dividable into a dark room and a sample preparation room. Or the three units might be modified to provide a two-module laboratory and an office with a small personal laboratory, or might provide a secretary's office,a private office,a full-size private laboratory, and a supplementary equipment room, or might be used to provide division headquarters consisting of a private office, a conference room, and a large secretarial, stenographic, and fling space. By changing the nature of the furniture and the type of services available, it might be used a t one time for chemical work and a t another time for experimental work in physics. I t might be used for laboratory purposes or, again, it might be subdivided so that part of it could be used to house community equipment, such as ovens, grinding machines, etc. To convert from any one of these uses t,o any one' of the others is a matter of a few days' work (Figure 5 ) . Perhaps even more important than the versatility of usage is the possibility of expanding the size of the laboratory and then readjusting the space so that it will be as efficiently distributed as if the building had originally been planned for the enlarged size. As a . simple illustration, if the original building was designed to provide 10 modules for chemical work and 10 modules for work on physics and it should be later decided t,o add an additional 10 modules of space; both the the chemical and the physical operations could be expanded five units by a rearrangement of partitions and facilities with the space as efficiently distributed and located as if the plan had originally been made for 30 modules. Space designed for laboratory use is expensive to construct so that in designing industrial research centers considerable effort has been made to provide cafeterias, libraries, auditoriums, file rooms, and even' offices convenient to the laboratory space but a t a lower construction cost. In some cases this is accomplished by building a simple modular laboratory building and adding short side wings to house offices. In other
349 Two Small Laborsatorie. with Common Work Room
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cases a section of building without laboratory piping, fume exhausts, etc., may be actually set into a standard laboratory structure. There are a number of other obvious approaches to the solution of this same problem, all having the general objective of using the expensive space equipped with services, fume exhausts, etc., primarily for actual experimental work. A great deal of thought has also been given to providing low-cost pilot plant space conveniently adjacent to high-grade laboratory facilities. Frequently it is desirable to maintain close correlation between laboratory research work and large-scale egerimentation, and to achieve this the two types of facilities need to be located so that the men can go back and forth conveniently between the laboratories and the pilot plant areas. There have been a number of very interesting cases where this has been solved by combining two entirely different types of buildings in a single structure. For example, a building may be designed by taking only half of a standard two-story research laboratory building-namely, the corridors and the laboratories on one side of the c o r r i d o ~ a n dsimply substituting this for one bay of a typical three-bay factory building. This gives a long stmcture with one face being standard laboratory building and the other face being simple inexpensive factory construction. The research men are supplied with the most modem possible laboratory facilities; yet they need only step across the corridor to be in an inexpensive factory building where large amounts of space can be provided for them at the mini-
35l
mum cost. Other ingenious arrangements of t,his sort have been worked out and successfully used. While industrial design has been directed primarily toward simplicity, versatility of use for the space provided, and ease of expansion, there has also been a growing desire for better appearance in industrial research facilities. There is a growing tendency to concentrate industrial research for a company in a research center separated from the plants and set in atp tractive surroundings. In fact, it is rather common
JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
now for 'an industrial research organization to speak of its "campus" and some of the centers now under construction will compare favorably in setting and outside appearance with modern university units. I t is very interesting that, in spite of the very utilitarian approach to the design of these industrial laboratories, the architects have been able to provide exteriors which justify real architectural enthusiasm. Modern industrial laboratory design is proving, again, the soundness of the old principle of designing from the inside out.
