For many, move-in day feels like the finish line. But for users, facility operators, and others, the reality is that it is merely the starting point. Once a team settles into a new lab, the conversation typically shifts from spatial questions to operational ones. While this phenomenon is not unique to labs, the level of interdependence between workflow, safety, and equipment benefits from a continued conversation around how the space supports, or does not support, the program.
Part of the problem lies in our industry’s tendency to frame the design and construction team’s involvement as a cost rather than a potential source of savings. This is a missed opportunity. In the same way that sustainability conversations can be refocused toward system efficiencies that save money, post-occupancy evaluations can revisit workflows and the way space is utilized. Exploring how a lab is actually functioning may suggest adjustments to the space or workflows that could produce substantial savings in time, equipment, and future staff needs, resulting in a safer and more efficient space.
Missing opportunities to reflect on how a space was designed alongside feedback on how it is actively being used results in users reverting to old habits and workflows. We are creatures of habit, and therefore uncomfortable with challenging norms and what we already know. While business-as-usual may generate profit in the short term, it can result in substantial investments over time that could be prevented through conversation and reflection once a space has been occupied.
Post-occupancy evaluations have historically been treated as a risk: why poke a sleeping bear? The truth is that the real risk is not asking questions. In an age where technology turns over quickly, owners already invest in replacing end-of-life systems. Why not also reflect on whether the workflows around that equipment have gone out of date? The people running the lab are a resource that owners have invested in, too. Industry standards plan the evaluation for about a year after move-in, once the space has been experienced across a full range of seasons, temperatures, and sun angles, and users have worked through the kinks of moving in and learning their new space.
Interested in lab design?
Start by defining success
Before you can evaluate a lab, you have to know what you are measuring against. Each project has its own unique story. A client starts with a need and communicates their goals, and designers act as translators to turn those needs into the design drivers the team focuses on. Those drivers carry through the entire project to guide decisions throughout every design phase, even into construction.
This same logic should apply after move-in. Work with your design team to revisit the drivers that defined the project, then identify the right questions to ask about each one. This becomes the questionnaire you bring to the users. You have to understand the structure and drivers of the story before you help write its conclusion.
This can be seen much like a building performance evaluation cycle, in which everything learned feeds the next step. Why would we not want to learn from our own processes and designs so that we can improve the next time around?
Assess workflows by real use
Evaluations can be approached in a variety of ways: interviews, observation, or questionnaires. They can also operate at three levels of detail: indicative for a light evaluation, investigative for a medium one, and diagnostic for a heavy one.
The criteria for evaluation should involve looking for gaps between how the lab was designed to be used and how it is actually used. That gap is often driven by change, including the integration of new equipment being installed shortly after a project was completed. It is hard to plan for unknowns and advancing technology, yet the unknowns are exactly what matter: the size of new equipment, its clearances, and its infrastructure needs can all be detrimental to workflow and safety once it arrives. Assessing how these impromptu adjustments impact planned workflows and space performance is critical for any comprehensive efforts to evaluate a space.
Evaluate safety, compliance, and ergonomics
The most common surprise when walking finished spaces with end-users for the first time is learning that they did not fully grasp what was communicated during the design stage. A post-occupancy evaluation evaluates the space but also sheds light on potential areas of improvement within the design process itself. Include at least a couple of questions about the design process in your questionnaire, such as whether people felt they understood what was being proposed, or whether drawings and floor plans made sense to those on your team who aren’t involved in design projects regularly. That feedback helps you communicate more effectively with your design partners on your next project.
Ergonomics also deserves particular attention in post-occupancy surveys, as these high-movement areas see users jumping between workstations, equipment, and adjacent offices. In one recent project, we were tasked with resolving the tension between accessibility and ergonomics. Researchers and lab managers tend to prefer standing-height countertops and benches because of how frequently they are standing and moving between stations, and many private labs prioritize height over accessibility. On this project, accessibility was also prioritized, which created a conflict between what users communicated as necessary to support their workflow and what the building owner communicated as a design requirement. The design team worked with the owner to meet accessibility requirements while still trying to preserve standing-height workstations, as the users requested in design meetings.
That lab is now approaching its first year of occupancy, and a major point in our post-occupancy evaluation will explore how the approach succeeded, which will inform future efforts to resolve these tensions inherent in lab spaces.
Gather feedback, then build a process
Questionnaires are worth prioritizing because they let you gather feedback and compare it across projects. Levering the use of a Likert scale helps to capture qualitative feedback quantitatively. Our questionnaire is developed in a way that it can be used on all our projects, yet also crafted to align with the exact design drivers for each individual project. This system is especially beneficial for firms or building owners who have repetitive projects. Once a survey is developed, it can be used for a post-occupancy evaluation at one year, three years, five years, or at whichever cadence supports the building owner and lab manager.
Where is this heading?
It is encouraging to see that the industry is getting better about recognizing the importance of post-occupancy efforts. Owners are requesting data drawn from previous post-occupancy evaluations to back up decision-making and are working closely with designers to drive the practice forward more broadly.
For lab managers or leaders who might be inexperienced but interested in running formal evaluations, identify your goals and lean into the expertise of your collaborators. The same translation that happens during design—turning needs into drivers—needs to happen again here: take your questions and concerns and turn them into a workflow and survey that actually meets your goals, leaning on your design team’s knowledge of the project where it helps.
If you hit a hiccup along the way, whether that is too few responses or contradictory feedback, consider scheduling interviews or observation walks to understand where the confusion is coming from. There are many tools in the tool belt, and the right ones depend on the outcome you want. Don’t hesitate to loop in your design team to help identify them.
