The surprising viability of office-to-lab conversions.
Workspaces aren’t just changing – they’re transforming completely. The surge in agile work, remote collaboration, and home offices has left commercial buildings standing empty across cities worldwide. Rather than demolish and rebuild, developers are exploring ways to reimagine these spaces – fuelling a global wave of adaptive reuse. In fact, it’s estimated that up to 90 percent of future development will involve redesigning existing buildings1.
While the majority of adaptive reuse projects look to convert empty offices into apartments or transform historic buildings into trendy hotels and restaurants, there’s a far more intriguing option hiding in plain sight: laboratories. On the surface, converting office buildings into labs sounds complex – especially with the infrastructure, compliance, and construction challenges involved. Yet, with the right investigation and design strategy, it’s not only possible – it’s highly successful and increasingly lucrative.
Where do we begin? By shattering the myth that laboratories are one-size-fits-all. Every single object in your line of sight – from your coffee mug to your smartphone – has been scrutinized and tested in a laboratory somewhere. This reality has created a myriad of different laboratory operations, infrastructure requirements, spatial configurations, and potential tenants. Rather than viewing these numerous parameters as overwhelming, it’s smart to recognise them as a strategic opportunity: The vast spectrum of laboratory typologies provides a decisive advantage when matching scientific functions to commercial space conversions.
Experts such as ERA-Co gather and analyze information about a location. Utilizing their custom data tool they can recommend typologies that will complement an existing precinct and attract researchers, government, industry and business. This analysis can lead to laboratory types which do not appear, on the surface, to be suitable for an existing building retrofit.
“The vast spectrum of laboratory typologies provides a decisive advantage when matching scientific functions to commercial space conversions.”
ERA‑co Location Analysis. Custom data tool analysis can recommend typologies that will complement an existing precinct
New laboratory buildings are designed with maximum efficiency in mind—seamlessly integrating structural grids, vibration control, optimal building orientation, and service systems to create efficient workflows. When retrofitting an existing building, these ideal conditions are rarely possible. The key to success lies in flexibility – identifying and leveraging opportunities while navigating around constraints.
Conducting a thorough analysis of existing infrastructure early in the process solves countless potential issues. Creative designers can work within building parameters, sizing and planning laboratory benches around existing column grids to optimize layouts. When it comes to heavy equipment, strategic zoning to place it in areas with higher weight capacity will eliminate the need for costly structural reinforcement. Where façades present challenges due to air leakage or unfavorable orientation, laboratories can be positioned inboard, away from the building envelope, avoiding expensive upgrades while maintaining optimal conditions. Options are always available.
UNSW Biosciences
Strategic modifications transform service-intensive laboratory requirements from challenges into opportunities. Laboratories tend to be heavily service intensive, often requiring significant upgrades and new plant rooms to support their specialised functions. At UNSW Biosciences – a successful, high-use research and teaching facility retrofitted into an existing building – low floor-to-floor heights informed the decision to locate the most services-intensive laboratories on the top level. This placement took advantage of the roof space above and minimised the need for additional risers.
For buildings with limited floor-to-floor heights, interstitial plant floors and dedicated on-floor plant rooms offer powerful alternatives. These strategies provide a high level of flexibility, allowing laboratory tenancies to adapt services and lab typologies without disrupting adjacent containment spaces. Louis Kahn’s Salk Institute famously employed interstitial floors to service the laboratories below – a design decision that, sixty years on, continues to support world-leading scientific research through its inherent adaptability.
Commonwealth Bank South Eveleigh
Maxed-out service risers? No problem. Atriums serve double duty – providing indirect natural light while creating elegant service pathways. Ductwork and cable trays transform into design assets when clad as sculptural features or boldly exposed for an industrial aesthetic reminiscent of the Pompidou Centre. Comprehensive structural assessment can identify opportunities for strategic void creation in floor slabs, accommodating new risers precisely where needed.
Structural analysis can confirm the structural vibration levels that may affect equipment such as microscopes and lasers. With technological solutions such as vibration tables being incorporated instead of significant changes to building infrastructure. Similarly, clever technology solutions are becoming more prevalent with examples like the introduction of Faraday cages to effectively block EMF/EMI infiltration or RF/IR shielding on windows will ensure electronic and audio security without comprehensive building alterations.
Prefabrication also offers a compelling construction advantage for specialized laboratories. Clean rooms, high containment facilities, pharmaceutical spaces, and advanced technologies excel when built with proprietary insulated sandwich panel systems. This approach extends successfully to various lab typologies, allowing most construction work to occur off-site before being precisely integrated into the existing structure with minimal disruption and modification.
The Australian Astronomical Optics (AAO) facility at Macquarie University’s new Engineering Faculty demonstrates this approach in action. Designed for advanced manufacturing and prototyping, the facility incorporates prefabricated construction seamlessly into the existing building fabric—providing researchers with high-performance laboratories that support breakthroughs in optics and space technology.
Prefabrication is also finding surprising success in less expected areas, such as podiums and foyers of commercial buildings. These spaces often have generous floor-to-floor heights, making them ideal for the insertion of proprietary lab modules and mezzanine levels dedicated to services plant. This model offers exciting opportunities for start-ups and commercial ventures to establish state-of-the-art laboratory spaces that showcase innovation and capability within high-profile, accessible locations.
The future of science doesn’t demand brand-new buildings – it demands bold thinking. With the right analysis, strategy and collaboration, even the most unlikely commercial spaces can become high-performance laboratories. Adaptive reuse isn’t just a sustainability measure – it’s a competitive edge, attracting researchers, industry and investment into precincts already rich with potential. Office-to-lab conversions challenge traditional design thinking, but they also unlock opportunities where few others are looking. For designers, scientists, and developers alike, it’s time to look again at the buildings we already have—and imagine science where you least expect it.
“For designers, scientists, and developers alike, it’s time to look again at the buildings we already have—and imagine science where you least expect it.”
1 https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/financial-services/articles/adaptive-reuse-of-commercial-real-estate.html
Media contact Tess Dolan Insights and Communications Leader – Global
Tess is Woods Bagot’s Global Insights and Communications Leader. Passionate about clarity, relevance and the creation of genuinely interesting content, Tess works with our innovators to create insights on the future of design, as applied to its impact on how we live, work, travel, play, learn, stay healthy and anything in-between. See Woods Bagot’s Insights for more.