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Nature 395, 849 (29 October 1998) | doi:10.1038/27565

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Laudable labs?

Martin Kemp1

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You can read much about the history of science and of architecture in the changing styles and materials used in the building of laboratories. It's a story of fashion, functionality and financial constraints.

We are all too familiar with the messy clutter of disparate laboratory buildings squeezed into congested university campuses. The lab is a major building type, yet we have come to expect little of it — other than as providing functional spaces which almost invariably prove to be inadequate as soon as they are occupied.