Dan, are you familiar with the work that Project Kaleidoscope has done on "Spaces that Work"? Over a number of years they've been bringing faculty and design professionals together to discuss exactly the types of things that you mention. I've never been to one of these workshops, but have heard positive things.

 You can find information about their facilities planning document at: http://www.pkal.org/collections/PKALFacilitiesResource.cfm. A separate document on structures for science can be found at: http://www.pkal.org/collections/PKALFacilitiesResource.cfm.

 At my institution, we teach in a traditional lab space so unfortunately I can't comment on the points that you raise.

Our institution also just went through a design process for our sophomore/junior level laboratory.  its 2 labs in one; we often teach 2 classes in there simultaneously, say organic and inorganic, or analytical and organic.  To say that the process was painful would be understating it.  However, we benefited greatly by hiring an outside consulting lab design firm to help us.  We found that very beneficial, as they could point us toward things that we hadn't thought of.  In the end, we tried to retain sight lines across a large room, while maintaining some ability to rearrange furniture and equipment.  In the end, we did not move forward with the project, but at least we have a nice glossy document to shop around to potential donors now!  I'm happy to provide more details one-on-one if you'd like.

Adam

Hi Dan,

We've been in our building for about 7 years now and I really like our gen chem lab space. We have two labs that hold 24 each. They connect to one another through a door, and the stock room (which is not a big stock room, but a relatively small gen chem storage and prep room) straddles the two labs.

The rooms are configured with 6 lab "tables," with drawers and cupboards, that hold 4 students. I can't remember exactly what the sink configuration is, but the "tables" are pretty big so there might be two small sinks in each table. The circulation around the room is very good, unlike our old lab where we had "pods" that we continually bumped into.

We have some hoods along one side of the room and lots of benches and cupboards around the sides. Each pair of students shares a computer and interface box (we're using LabWorks, which I think is called something else now). We didn't do anything fancy with the computers or monitors. I think they are simply computers that are one level down the food chain at Hope, so we never have trouble getting CIT to upgrade them (they're always happy to place the campus hand-me-downs somewhere).

Finally, we run labs around the clock (8-11, 12-3, 3-6, 6-9) on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and have fewer sections on other days. We also use the lab for our nursing chem course and for the "wet" parts of analytical.

Hope you find this helpful. The suggestions that Barb and Adam made are very good!

Joanne

Our introductory inorganic labs (we don't really do "General" chemistry any more) are very similar to those described by Joanne below, except we have four benches with 6 students each, 3 per side. It has worked well for a variety of group labs (groups of 2, 3, and 4). We also built quite a few hoods into our lab (8), so that each person can have 1/3 to 1/2 a hood depending on how students are moving through a particular lab. That arrangement has given us more flexibility in the kinds of labs that we can do. If you want additional details, feel free to contact me at heppley@depauw.edu.

We just finished a new science building here at Smith (the dedication ceremony is Oct. 16).  We have 2 labs dedicated to gen chem that ideally hold 16 students each - although we can get up to 18 in there if needed.  There is a prep room space that connects into both labs.  We have 2 traditional long lab benches plus extra table space in the middle for students to work up data on computers and discuss results.  We also are hoping that this space will be good for pre-lab discussion.  Of course, this is still untested space as our teaching labs won't move in there until January.  We also worked with lab designers who were very helpful.  

I'd say *the* major concern here almost has to be the balance of resources vs. pedagogy. If you are so pinched for teaching time that you really need one instructor per 50 students, then go large. I don't mean for this to be the obvious "wrong choice". If it's a choice of lectures of 50 with labs of 25 vs. lectures of 25 with labs of 50, I'd put the resources in the lecture course, for example. But if that's *not* the case, I think of the labs as a teaching space, and the lab time as precious (we have 16 in organic, 24 in genchem). I get more one-on-one time with students in the lab that anywhere else. "So why are you adding that reagent?" "'Cause the lab book says..." "Yes, but why are you adding that reagent?" Not only does the larger lab cut down the frequency of this interaction by a factor of two, but a class of 50 *feels* like a different class than 25, and students interact with the class, each other, and the instructor differently. At our post-baccalaureate dinner this spring, about 2/3 of my lab was in attendance (many had become friends of the much smaller numbers who were post-bacs), and they *insisted* we get an ochem lab photo. They were really excited to get most of the lab together for a photo. You don't get that with 50. I'll bend a lot of the rules of architecture for that kind of community in my classes.

We've got a 5-year old building with 2 Gen Chem/General Purpose labs pretty much exactly as described by others: 6 built-in tables, 4 students per table (2 pairs), 2 computers per table. I'll try not to repeat what others have said, but I'll provide a few (hopefully insightful) comments.

* Long benches provide a little more enrollment flexibility. It's not that hard to squeeze an extra student or two on a long bench, but if I have 25 students in my (6 tables)x(4 students) room, it feels like chaos. I prefer the learning environment of the 6 tables, and I think the students are better served, but if your enrollment situation is such that you'll regularly be squeezing a couple extra students in, it might be easier with long benches.

* 2 small labs probably make it easier to more fully schedule the space. Again, this is a flexibility thing. If you can afford to have lab space dedicated to one class and only one class, then this probably isn't a concern, but what goes on in your gen chem lab space when gen chem labs aren't being held? If you have 2 "small" rooms, you might be able to use one for a general studies chemistry lab and the other for a analytical chem experiment. On our campus, we actually have had people from Computer Science use one of our Gen Chem labs for a class because the large open tables and lockable drawers made it convenient for them to work on projects.

* Starting this fall, we are running 2 simultaneous labs in our adjacent rooms supervised by 1 faculty. To facilitate, we're using a General Chemistry Laboratory Assistant (GCLA) in each room. These are junior/senior-level undergrads, and so far it seems to be working great. The faculty member cycles between the rooms.

* What sort of pre-lab lecture do you do? In the past, we would start off each week with a 10-30 minute pre-lab lecture before the students started. Obviously that's not possible with 2 separate rooms, so we have multiple ways to deal with that (depending upon individual faculty members' preference). Some sections have a separate lecture room where everyone meets for the first 10-30 minutes and a traditional pre-lab lecture is given. In my classes, I have opted to record video pre-labs and post them online. If your institutional preferences and/or requirements necessitate an in-person pre-lab lecture, that could play into your designs/decisions.

* If you go with 2 rooms, put some thought into how they are connected. Our 2 rooms have a prep area between them and we really don't want 48 Gen Chem lab students walking back and forth in that prep space, so we're trying to make sure that all of the faculty and GCLAs walk out through the public hallway to move between labs. If you are able to have a door directly connecting the labs it makes it a little easier. You could also consider windows between the two labs to make it easier to keep an eye on everything, just install some blinds so that you can close them if different classes are in the two rooms. {That probably wouldn't be necessary if both rooms are doing lab work, but if one class is showing a video or having some other sort of presentation it might be distracting. Actually, the more I think about it, the more I think that having 2 rooms with a big window between them would be spectacular, too bad we won't be getting another new building during my career at MSUM...} The General Chemistry labs at the University of Michigan had windows between them if you're looking for an example.

Again, I hope some of this helps. I'm presenting a poster at the Spring ACS meeting on the successes and challenges we've seen in our move to simultaneous labs and GCLAs and online pre-labs. It's won't exactly address the design of a new facility questions you're dealing with, but it might give you some ideas I'd imagine you'll have made most of your decisions by then, but if you happen to be at the meeting, stop by. I'd also be happy to help before then, feel free to drop me an email. As previously mentioned, the PKal site also has good info on lab design, one of their reports is at: http://www.pkal.org/documents/2007FacPlenIV.cfm