LAB2050
Through LAB2050 SmithGroup’s Science & Technology practice examines new technologies, scientific trends and economics shaping the research landscape. Since 2001, our team has sought out client advisors from leading research institutions to better understand their expectations for the future, so that SmithGroup can be optimally prepared to provide transformative programming, lab planning and design solutions.
LAB2050 explores six critical considerations for this practice: technology, funding/partnerships, sustainability, collaboration, synergy and planning/design. This helps us understand what future research spaces will look like, how they will function, and how to plan for a built environment that supports the transformative scientific endeavors of tomorrow.
The Laboratory of the Half Century (AKA Lab2050) is an inspirational initiative SmithGroup embarked on to dig deep into the scientific trends, new technologies and economics that will shape the design concepts of research laboratory environments in the next decades.
LAB2050 Physical Manifestation
What does the lab of the future look like? That is the fundamental question of an ongoing initiative at SmithGroup. The firm’s Science and Technology practice periodically takes time to examine the new technologies, scientific trends and economics shaping the research landscape. Since 2001, it has sought out knowledge experts from leading research institutions to better understand their expectations for the future, so that SmithGroup can be optimally prepared to provide transformative programming, lab planning and design solutions. In 2015, it began to focus on the Laboratory of the Half Century, or LAB2050.
The following top ten points consolidate the findings of LAB2050, which is an initiative SmithGroup embarked on to dig deep into the scientific trends, new technologies and economics that will shape the design concepts of research laboratory environments in the coming decades. SmithGroup and our Client Advisors advocate these foci for the near and long-term future. Although we anticipate that they will change and flux over time, we continue to plan and design 40 to 60 year buildings on a daily basis. This makes it important to constantly consider how advanced facility design will respond to the future technological and user needs outlined in our findings.
Fourth Industrial Revolution: Are you Ready?
Gone are the days during which we revel in the power and speed of the printing press. In this age, we can 3-D print our own toothbrushes and walk the Great Wall of China from the comfort of our living rooms. The 4th Industrial Revolution is upon us and as stewards of innovative design we must ask ourselves and our communities… are we ready?