Evolution of Lab at NeoCon 2024

At NeoCon 2024, Formaspace is presenting the Future of Lab. Take a look at the evolution of laboratory science in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
 
AUSTIN, Texas - June 6, 2024 - PRLog -- To better understand the laboratory of the future, let's take a retrospective look at the evolution of laboratory science in the 19th and 20th Centuries.

American And European Laboratory Design Before World War One

American ingenuity in the 19th and early 20th Centuries brought us revolutionary advances in communication (the telegraph network, telephone, phonograph, motion pictures), transportation (the intercontinental railway, first airplane, affordable automobiles), and electric appliances (the incandescent light bulb, vacuum cleaner) just to name a few.

The famous American laboratories of the period were typically privately funded and often located in rustic buildings or converted garages or horse stables. Most were typically constructed of wood or brick, with exposed brick or wood beadboard wall surfaces, large wooden sash windows, and rough-sawn floorboards equipped with basic free-standing wood furniture.

Interestingly, many of the seminal experiments of the period relied on what we might today call a "makerspace" type laboratory; lab scientists regularly used machine tools to craft unique custom equipment for their experiments, for example, using glassblowing techniques to create individual vacuum vessels.

In contrast to American laboratories, the best-known European labs in the period were established by major universities or state-sponsored institutes.

An example is the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University in the UK, where in 1917, New Zealander Ernest Rutherford was the first to split the atom and identify the neutron. Despite its prominent role in physics discoveries, the Cavendish Lab remained a hodge-podge of cramped lab quarters and building additions typical of urban Victorian architecture in Britain.

In contrast, Germany constructed numerous modern, purpose-built scientific research institutions, including The Prussian Academy of Sciences and Humboldt University in Berlin. The goal was to advance the field of German science, to train young scientists, and to recruit the world's best talent, including Albert Einstein, whom physicist Max Planck personally recruited in 1914 from Switzerland to join the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft (KWG) institute (shown above) in Dahlem, a wealthy, leafy enclave of Berlin.

Some German laboratories were built according to the Kirkbride Plan (a 19th-century American innovation in hospital and mental asylum design) that incorporated long, narrow 'batwing' corridors spreading out from the center to improve crossflow ventilation and access to natural light.

This focus on ventilation and natural light would become a laboratory design theme once again in the 21st Century.

Read more...https://formaspace.com/articles/wet-lab/evolution-of-lab-...

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