The P-DfMA approach is also central to the Infrastructure and Project Authority’s ‘.

In fact, the word laboratory can immediately conjure up people in white coats doing tests on wooden benches.So far, so 1990.. During the Covid pandemic, a light was briefly shone on labs’ enormous significance to our lives.

We waited for test results to allow us to go to work, we looked for information about new variants and we waited for a vaccine.This highlighted briefly just some of the important and transformational work that happens in thousands of laboratories by millions of scientists and technicians.. Now, however, labs have moved to the background once again.. Before collating and expressing the insightful views about laboratories of the future tabled at this event, it feels important to define laboratory in the context of this conversation.Those present represented lab innovation – from pure research to routine mass-testing; from medical, pharmaceutical and genetics, to battery technology..

The need to focus on the future function of labs, rather than generic labs was clear..The group agreed that opportunities to magnify the value output of laboratories lie within the broad spectrum of data, automation/growth in data processing, and smart technology and systems.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning offer transformational change in value creation.

Although there are some individual examples of its real-life deployment, we are at the start of an exponential curve.. A thread of discussion around the idea that systems could be self-validating created significant energy in the room, as well as friction between those who understood how transformational such a realised idea could be with those who saw the potential disaster.which Board Director Jaimie Johnston says, ‘allows a far wider range of clients to get the same benefits without the need to create a new system.’.

Speaking about the innovative qualities of the Circle project, Co-Founder Martin Wood comments that Circle Reading was the first exercise to really connect design and construction in such an intimate way.‘The platform principle completely enshrines design and construction as a single entity,’ he says.

‘It’s effectively a way of thinking, a principle where the rationale in design supports the rationale in construction in a fully unified, virtuous circle effect.’.Johnston elaborates, explaining that the project employed an ‘evidence based approach’ to ‘balance various and often contradictory [stakeholder] needs.’ These included those of individual clinical specialisms, nursing staff, catering providers, facilities and maintenance providers, the Care Quality Commission etc...