Architecture
Engineering
Planning
Design
American Academy of Forensic Scientists
64th Annual Meeting
Feb. 20–25, 2012
Atlanta, GA
Join us for some good southern hospitality as Atlanta, Georgia hosts the 64th annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. Please come visit us at booth 519 and let us know, "What's Your Problem". We will be collecting information from guests of the conference about what issues and concerns they have in their laboratories to explore in upcoming issues of our standing column in Forensic Magazine. Submit your problem for a chance to win a giveaway in a drawing at our booth. We hope to see you there!
Celebrating the Opening of the New Crime Laboratory for the Tucson Police Department
Congratulations to the Tucson Police Deparment on the opening of their new crime laboratory on Wednesday, January 25th. Just shy of 60,000 gross square feet, we have been working in conjunction with the City of Tucson and WSM Architects since 2008 to bring this project to fruition. This project is tracking LEED Silver. Congratulations to Crime Laboratory Superintendent Susan Shankles and the rest of the team of professionals in the Tucson Crime Lab for a fantastic job. Enjoy your new home!
New Laboratory Breaking Ground for the Illinois State Police
Congratulations to the Illinois State Police Metro-East Forensic Laboratory who will soon be breaking ground on their new $37.8M 60,000 gsf facility in Belleville, Illinois. Together with the Capitol Development Board for the State of Illinois and the Illinois State Police this facility has been in the works since 2005. We are all very excited to see the facility starting construction.
Forensic Laboratories - New Handbook on its Way!
Ken Mohr, Lou Hartman and Susan Halla have been invited to serve on the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Technical Working Group (TWG) for the new version of the Forensic Laboratories: Handbook for Facility Planning, Design, Construction, and Moving which will be available soon. Together with an esteemed group of their peers and laboratory directors from across the country, the TWG spent a full day commenting and working collaboratively to introduce an update to the original 1998 document that has been come to be known simply as "The Blue Book". We'll be sure and make an additional announcement when the new document is available for download.
Susan Halla and Michelle Gangel Present at Labs21
Susan Halla of Crime Lab Design and Michelle Gangel from PGAV Architects presented information about the new Johnson County Criminalistics Laboratory at the 2011 Annual Labs21 Conference in September in Providence, Rhode Island. This new 62,500 GSF facility currently under construction in Johnson County, Kansas is currently tracking to be the first forensic laboratory under LEED 2009 to be certified a Platinum facility. You can go here to view their presentation entitled, "The Human Touch: Leaving Your Fingerprint on a Susatainable Laboratory".
Susan Halla completes ASCLD/LAB International Assessor Training
Congratulations goes to Susan Halla who has successfully completed the ASCLD/LAB International Assessor
Training course. The course included 40 hours of ASCLD/LAB International ISO17025:2005 training.
American Academy of Forensic Scientists
63rd Annual Meeting
Feb. 23–25, 2011
Chicago, IL
Ken Mohr presented to the ICITAP Senior Forensic Advisors on what to look for when selecting a proper home for
an international forensic agency. He shared Crime Lab Design’s experiences and lessons learned while working in
Guam, Paraguay, Columbia, Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait, and Nigeria.
Kyle Ann Hoskins, Forensic Scientist at Michigan State Police Forensic Science Division in Bridgeport, won the
drawing for a fee copy of The Forensic Laboratory Handbook Procedures and Practice, Second Edition. Congratulations!
Ken Mohr and Lou Hartman published in
The Forensic Laboratory Handbook Procedures and Practice, Second Edition
Humana Press
Ken Mohr and Lou Hartman coauthored Forensic Facility Plan and Design Guidelines, Chapter 18, pp. 479-508.
This chapter discusses ways to justify renovating an existing facility or the need for a new facility. It also explores
guidelines that affect forensic laboratory design. Included in this chapter is a checklist to evaluate your current
building and labs for renovation, and an explanation of process mapping and its uses in justifying and designing a
new lab. Ideas such as modular planning and open laboratories are reviewed. Laboratories pose special
challenges for electrical, mechanical, plumbing, heating, ventilating, and air conditioning systems, and the end of
the chapter discusses these issues.