Kickstarting LDC 2024 with an EHSR Workshop
The 2024 Lab Design Conference is officially underway in Phoenix, Arizona! On Sunday, May 19, Lab Manager’s senior safety editor, Jonathan Klane, led a workshop on lab design principles to improve ongoing EHSR practices.
Approved for two AIA CES LUs/HSW credits, the course focused on how a lab’s design, construction, and intended use impacts its initial and ongoing environmental health, safety, and risk.
This course was structured to address how EHSR is influenced by various stages, including:
Planning:
Initial concept design and planning: How can we prioritize the EHSR perspective?
Specific and detailed design, incorporating PtD approaches: What are the risks associated with this lab?
The Build:
Construction and modifications: How can ongoing communication facilitate a smooth process?
Inspections, system testing, and a seamless handoff: How can these processes ensure a robust safety culture in the lab?
Use:
Operations and maintenance (handled by facilities, users, building managers, etc.): How can a thorough handoff, startup, and initial use by occupants reduce risks?
Usability by the intended occupants (in and around the lab): How can emphasizing these aspects lead to better consideration of their specific processes, especially in multi-occupant spaces?
Evaluating success, satisfaction, and lessons learned: How can we document and avoid repeating past mistakes?
A key takeaway was prevention-through-design (PtD), understanding the EHSR requirements of a lab influence and how its design, construction, and operations play a role and offer opportunities for EHSR outcomes, as well as how maintaining a focus on EHSR can improve lasting safety and risk management during lab design and construction.
At the end of the session, attendees were able to explain how and why a lab’s design impacts its EHSR, describe both the evident and hidden EHSR outcomes resulting from a lab’s design, and list the do’s and don'ts of their lab’s EHSR needs.
