Lab Manager is excited to announce its fourth annual Design Excellence Awards, a program developed to recognize and celebrate the best new projects within the lab design community. 

Following the highly successful launch of this awards program in 2020, Lab Manager is once again proud to celebrate everyone who touches the lab design process—from the architect and lab planner to the engineer and equipment and furniture manufacturers. In order to be recognized, we ask that you put your passion for your recent lab projects into words—and, by doing so, enter into an elite community within the lab design world. Your entry should describe and demonstrate to our judges why your vision, execution, and delivery of the final lab was unique, and show how it brings a new level of excellence to the lab design community.

Newly built and renovated laboratory facilities are invited to enter this prestigious competition, for recognition in one of three categories—Excellence in Innovation, Excellence in Sustainability, and Excellence in Safety.

The deadline to enter your lab facility in the Design Excellence Awards is March 17, 2023.

• Gain international recognition for your team’s hard work

• Showcase the features that make your lab a role model for those looking to design and build similar facilities

• Explain how your lab benefits the community as a whole, as well as the steps you’ve taken to create a healthier, happier work environment for your staff

• Call attention to the challenges you overcame in the design/build process in order to help others facing similar challenges in their own projects

• Demonstrate your facility’s sustainability and safety initiatives and how they can help make all labs “greener” and safer places to work

Awards will be given for Excellence in Innovation, Excellence in Sustainability, and Excellence in Safety. Winners will be interviewed for articles featured online and in print issues of Lab Manager. Winners will also receive a digital badge/logo to display on their website and social media.

Winners will also be awarded a plaque, which can be awarded in person at the Lab Design Conference on May 16-17 in San Diego, CA; or mailed to their office.

Honorable Mention and any other awards will be given solely at the judges’ discretion. Honorable Mention will receive a digital badge/logo to display on their website and social media, and will be sent a certificate. 

The Excellence in Innovation award will be presented to the lab entry that excels in design and execution from your company’s point of view. If you are the architect or lab planner, your company should enter the final project and detail what you specifically have introduced that is unique and groundbreaking. If your company designed and supplied the furnishing, for example, submit the lab project and outline why your work is different and brings lab interiors to the next level. Whatever part of the project you specialize in, you can submit your work on a new or renovated lab for recognition for this award.

The Excellence in Sustainability award will be presented to the lab entry which shows the most positive influence on energy savings and green lab initiatives. Labs are well-known “energy hogs,” which presents a challenge for project teams and lab managers who want to develop a more energy-efficient facility. Your entry should demonstrate how the sustainable design of your facility has improved lab operations and led to tangible improvements in costs and energy efficiency.

The Excellence in Safety award will be given to the lab entry which best demonstrates the improvements that your company has made to safeguard the workplace and workforce across multi-specialty labs in medical research, science, and technology—encompassing a wide spectrum of lab types and lab designs. If your work has improved the safety of labs with your entry, explain how and why your techniques will influence other lab designs as a model of excellence in safety. We encourage you to include information about holistic lab design, and how your lab's design benefits the health and wellness of its occupants.