New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
New York Public Health Laboratory Programming
New York, NY
Lord Aeck Sargent completed a program and planning study for a new Public Health Lab for the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), intending to replace its current 180,000 sf diagnostic laboratory.
The team looked for opportunities to combine similar testing procedures and protocols, ways to share equipment and improve the efficiencies. The program was developed to work on a variety of site scenarios, whether the new lab was a renovated facility or a stand-alone structure. It outlines the needs for each of the lab’s departments, including virology and immunology, environmental sciences, toxicology, microbiology, administration, and central services.
In addition to developing a “high performance” analytical testing lab, the planning team developed strenuous security protections for the building and the samples being tested. As a first responder facility, safe guards are programmed into the facility and the site requirements to mandate set-backs, entry drive protections and secured paths of entry into the facility.
Because the facility may receive unknown hazardous biological or chemical materials, specialized receiving areas were programmed into the facility to assure the safety of both personnel and of the samples. “Chain of Custody” criteria and detailed flow diagrams were developed to assure that the final design will support the requirements for sample protection and control.
Key Features
- Safe and Secure handling of BSL-3 level pathogens
- Program includes space for BIOWATCH
- Planned flexibility to accommodate surge requirements
- Consolidated specialty testing; PCR; BSL-3
