These days they’re coming to her for help and she’s passionately excited about the change happening right before her eyes.. “What we have to recognise,” she says, “is we're counting on each other, and we have to make sure that we're all doing the right things because it’s so connected.”.

Limited risers in offices can also result in more service crossovers and congestion, increasing this depth further still.It is often possible to mitigate some of this through good design, such as lowering ceilings in corridors to accommodate main ductwork runs or positioning lower height rooms close to risers.

Ground floor units and older office buildings may also have larger floor-to-floor heights, and there can even be opportunities to increase headroom by removing raised-access floors (though this will impact floor thresholds.)A deeper ceiling void may also introduce the need for sprinklers or fire detection systems.. 3.Structural frames in existing office buildings may be unable to support higher lab loads or vibration sensitive equipment..

Some automated and larger-scale lab equipment can be particularly heavy, and even high densities of smaller equipment or storage items can result in relatively high loads when compared to a standard office fit-out.A typical office may have a live load capacity of around 3-4kN/m.

2. , while a lab will often require 4-5kN/m.

2. , with some specialised equipment reaching over 20kN/m.Techniques such as transferring extract air from adjacent office spaces to partially make-up the new lab supply can sometimes be used, however their compliance must be carefully reviewed..

Even with an optimised design it is likely that new, larger HVAC plant and additional ductwork will be required.For some office buildings this can be difficult to incorporate, with limited roof, external, riser, and ceiling void space available.

Ideally, new riser space can be formed in such a way that it doesn’t significantly reduce net usable lab space or cause issues with adjacent tenancies (where relevant).Where this isn’t possible, external ductwork can be considered, however there are other issues such as building appearance and Planning Permission that can make this unfeasible.. Exhausts for fume cabinets, ducted MBSCs, storage cabinets, and LEV (local extract ventilation) will also need to find their way to roof level.