From time to time, money magically comes along to build or renovate a science laboratory. Inevitably, administrators and architects have their ideas about how the lab should be designed. We the instructors are often consulted, but we may have no experience with lab design and may not know what to plan for. In the absence of planning, what you get is probably similar to what you had before, just newer (right?) The Lab Safety Institute has been examining a floor space requirement, and the Chemistry Educators discussion list has had some recent useful discussion about laboratory plans. You can Search the CHEMED-L Archives for the phrase "Occupancy Load" to find some relevant posts from a March 2005 thread.
I also came across a treatise prepared by Michael Chejlava from Lafayette College. He has apparently had significant experience in redesigning labs, and has a lengthy discussion of what to plan for.
You can see in a post in this blog a couple of weeks ago an example of a so-called "studio lab" that I had the opportunity to see at Washington College. This type of setup lends itself to multiple uses, such as having "lecture" and "lab" in the same room, sequentially, or moving back and forth as required. This means that the course schedule does not have to have separate "lecture" and "lab: times scheduled, and the two parts can be integrated.
I hope that I remember to come back to this if MSSU ever has a chance to renovate some laboratories.
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