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A framework for the laboratories in our lives

When thinking casually about laboratories, clinical diagnostic and chemistry labs likely spring to mind. But when the layman is pressed to name more laboratory types than that, the task becomes more difficult. The next logical jump is to think about all the different types of scientific study that might have a laboratory associated with it: how about biology, physics, geology, and engineering? That list could get rather long, actually, and it may be a little like throwing darts.

So how do we better visualize how and where laboratories intersect our lives? It helps to build a framework that all laboratories could find a home within.

Below (Fig. 1) is a diagrammatic expression of one method of organizing laboratories of the world. The idea behind the framework is that you could name a specific laboratory and be able to put it somewhere within the framework. For example:

• The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's mobile forensics laboratory would fall under Government > Public > Compliance and Legal > Wet (or Dry) > Mobile.

• An engineering design laboratory based within a for-profit car manufacturing company would fall under Private > Internal Customer > Research / Design > Dry > Fixed.

• A chemistry laboratory housed in a secondary school in Germany would fall under Academic > Public > Teaching > Secondary > Wet > Fixed.

Figure 1. A diagrammatic representation of laboratory types using both client type and function as the key organizational elements

The original inspiration for this diagram came from Jain and Rao's attempt to diagram Indian diagnostic laboratories in 2015. While their diagram focused entirely on the clinical sphere of laboratories, it was easy to envision expanding upon their work to express laboratories of all types. Additional inspiration came from KlingStubbins architecture textbook Sustainable Design of Research Laboratories: Planning, Design, and Operation, which lists several methods for organizing types of laboratories; Daniel D. Watch's Building Type Basics for Research Laboratories; and Walter Hain's Laboratories: A Briefing and Design Guide.

The benefit of this diagrammatic approach — with client type at its base — becomes more apparent when we start considering the other two methods we could use to categorize laboratories, as described by KlingStubbins et al.: by science and by function. Organizing by science quickly becomes problematic, emphasizes KlingStubbins:

Gone are the days when the division was as simple as biology and chemistry. New science fields emerge rapidly now and the lines between the sciences are blurred. A list based on science types would include not just biology and chemistry, but biochemistry, biophysics, electronics, electrophysiology, genetics, metrology, nanotechnology, pharmacokinetics, pharmacology, physics, and so on.

As for function, we can look at what type of activity is primary to the lab. Is the lab designed to teach students, function as a base for research, provide quality control functions, calibrate equipment, act as a routine analytical station, or perform more than one of these tasks? Another benefit of looking at labs by function is it helps with our organization of labs within industry (discussed in the next section) by what they do. For example, we don't have a "manufacturing lab"; rather, we have a laboratory in a manufacturing company — perhaps making cosmetics — that serves a particular function, whether its quality control or research and development. This line of thinking has utility, but upon closer inspection, we discover that we need to also look further up the chain at who's running it.

As such, we realize these functions can be integrated with client type to provide a more complete framework. Why? When we look at laboratories by science type — particularly when inspecting newer fields of science — we realize 1. they are often interdisciplinary (e.g., molecular diagnostics integrating molecular biology with clinical chemistry) and 2. they can serve two different functions within the same science (e.g., a diagnostic cytopathology lab vs. a teaching cytopathology lab). Rather than build a massively complex chart of science types, with numerous intersections and tangled webs, it seems more straightforward to look at laboratories by client type and then function, following from the architectural viewpoints presented by KlingStubbins et al. With that framework firmly in place, we can better organize an examination of where labs can be found and what roles they function under.

However, this doesn't mean looking at laboratories by science is entirely fruitless. But rather than focus directly on the sciences, why not look at the industries employing laboratory science? While there is crossover between industries (e.g., the cosmetic and petrochemical industries both lean on various chemical sciences), we can extend from the previous diagram (or work in parallel with it) and paint a broader picture of just how prevalent laboratories are in our life.

In the next section, we look at the private, government, and academic labs in various industries (client type); provide real-life examples of labs and their specific tests; and discuss the various activities and sciences (functions) performed in them.