Insights Category: Thought Leadership

Architecture’s Role in Shaping a Resilient Future

It’s Climate Week: the world’s largest climate-focused event, taking place in New York City from September 21 to 28. This globally significant gathering brings together leaders across business, technology, policy, academia, and civil society, united by one urgent mission: to accelerate bold, tangible action in the fight against climate change. This week, global leaders, corporate innovators, scientists, and community changemakers are converging in New York to demand more than talk; they’re calling for accountability, urgency, and real impact.

As architects, we stand at a critical intersection of design, environment, and responsibility. The built environment accounts for nearly 40% of global carbon emissions, making our industry one of the largest contributors to the climate crisis. In cities like New York and Boston, the threats are no longer theoretical; they’re here. Rising sea levels, urban heat islands, severe flooding, and more frequent extreme weather events are already reshaping how we live, build, and plan for the future. Designing for climate resilience is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity.

At TRIA Architects, we believe design can and must be a powerful tool for environmental and social change. We are rethinking every aspect of how buildings interact with their ecosystems. From passive solar design and all-electric systems to elevated, flood-adapted ground floors, green roofs, and regenerative landscapes that restore biodiversity and manage stormwater, we’re pushing beyond sustainability toward true regeneration.

Our mission is not only to design buildings that endure in the face of a changing climate, but to create spaces that actively contribute to planetary and community health. We aim to reduce operational and embodied carbon, promote human wellness, and design environments that are resilient, inclusive, and future-ready.

But we can’t do it alone.

We call on our peers across the built environment—developers, engineers, urban planners, contractors, and policymakers—to join us in raising the bar. We must think beyond aesthetics and efficiency and prioritize durability, equity, and ecological impact in every decision we make. Climate justice must be at the heart of our work, ensuring that vulnerable communities are protected and empowered through design.

Let’s commit to designing buildings that don’t just survive the challenges of the future, but help shape a more just, livable, and regenerative world.

The time to act is now. The choices we make today will define the legacy we leave behind not just for our cities, but for the planet.

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Since 2015, TRIA has been at the forefront of designing the human experience toward a better future, creating environments that inspire, engage, and elevate communities. From science and innovation to corporate workplace, multifamily, hospitality, mixed-use, and master planning, TRIA partners with organizations nationwide to create meaningful, enduring spaces that drive progress and transformation.

TRIA is a signatory of the AIA 2030 Commitment, a climate strategy committed to reaching carbon neutrality by 2030. Among other sustainable initiatives, the firm is currently working with a confidential climatetech company to create an innovative headquarters and manufacturing facility in support of their mission to find crucial climate solutions.

An abbreviated version of this article originally appeared in High-Profile’s September 2025 issue.

Science and Innovation Principal Edwin Hargrave is currently leading multiple research projects at Dartmouth College as part of our Higher Ed sector work. One project particularly stands out: a renovation in Burke Chemistry, a research facility that Edwin was a key designer for approximately thirty years prior, earlier in his career. We sat down with Edwin to hear his thoughts on returning to work in the building.

Burke Laboratory was constructed in 1994; what were the state-of-the-art considerations when you were designing the facility?

At the time, Academic Science facilities were coming into their own, both as a vital component of cross-disciplinary curriculums and as an opportunity for unique architectural expressions.

Historically, science facilities followed the planning conventions and exterior expressions of a traditional classroom building. This was relatively easy to accomplish stylistically and technically, since the sizes and arrangements of program spaces were similar. MEP systems were also relatively simple in those buildings, which had not yet caught up with the risks associated with exposure to chemicals. In the late 80’s, science buildings began to adopt a highly industrial expression, in part to celebrate the technical sophistication of the building’s mechanical systems, not unlike the Pompidou Centre in Paris. While these were dramatic to see, they were typically not great neighbors visually and not well poised to stand the test of time – a critical consideration when working on an established legacy institution’s campus.

With Burke, we wanted a friendlier approach that respected the overall campus aesthetic while also speaking to the vernacular of the region and subtly hinting at the complexity of the technology within. The building is sited just off the campus green and embraces the pedestrian pathways with a landscaped forecourt and a generous entrance porch with bench seating. The exterior of the building has materials that match the nearby campus buildings – a warm brick blend with New Hampshire granite accents – and emulates the proportions of the windows, doors, and similar exterior elements. We also employed a sloping metal roof reminiscent of large vernacular structures and sculpted the profile of the roof form to express and integrate the many laboratory exhaust “chimneys” occurring in the mechanical penthouse. We collectively chose to focus the design attention and capital on the teaching and research programs and state-of-the-art MEP systems specifically tailored to the needs of the facility but also easily serviceable.

As is often the case with new buildings on significant campuses, the building garnered much attention in the architectural community once completed. While this was certainly rewarding at the time, the fact that the building is still considered to be a good neighbor today – and continues to accommodate emerging programs easily – offers an even more lasting sense of satisfaction.

What were the design innovations introduced in Burke?

Lab safety was a significant design driver for Burke, and we focused attention accordingly in all the program spaces. In the research labs, Burke was one of the first projects to physically separate grad student write-up areas from the lab spaces. At the time, write-up desks were typically attached to the lab benches, or just across a narrow “ghost aisle” but still in the labs. This provides unnecessary exposure to risks to the students in the labs while they’re not performing true research activities. In Burke, the write-ups are grouped in a separate collaboration space, which is nestled between the research labs and connected with large glass windows into the lab spaces. This is a practice TRIA continues to this day, especially with renovation and consolidation projects that seek to increase the efficiency and utilization of valuable research square footage in addition to ensuring safety.

The research labs are provided with Lab Safety Panels in the entry vestibules, another innovation. The Safety Panel co-locates all life safety features into a door-sized piece of millwork where they can be easily accessed – this includes an extinguisher, emergency shutoff switches for electrical and flammable lab gases, MSDS Sheets and signage for chemicals in use, a campus phone (yes, a plastic corded telephone) connected to emergency services, and of course lab coats and eyewear. This was in many ways the precursor to what’s now known as the PPE Station (personal protective equipment) found in most research laboratory entrance vestibules.

Burke’s teaching labs also included a major safety innovation in the form of the first all-glass student teaching fume hoods. High visibility between the instructor and the students is key to preventing accidents with introductory chemistry courses, and the glass-walled hoods provided views from the instructor’s station across the entire lab. These are now a mainstay in most laboratory equipment manufacturers’ offerings, and by comparison they’re now certainly more stylized. But at the core the goal is the same: reducing opportunities for accidents by increasing visibility.

How does the layout of the research laboratories compare to today’s labs?

The Research Labs are modular, repetitive spaces – as was the preferred practice at the time. A PI (Principal Investigator) with tenure and significant grant funding might be assigned multiple adjacent modules with internal connecting doors, while a new hire may have received just one. This approach offered flexibility in space assignments over time; however, each PI’s lab modules typically received some level of customization that may not have been useful over the extended life of the lab. This self-contained research suite approach relies less on shared support facilities across a floor, which reduces the opportunities for interaction between faculty and staff.

Research programs today tend to be large shared open labs with a focus on team-based problem solving, even between multiple faculty members. This arrangement also introduces students to the research workflows they’ll encounter in the workforce. Still, when there are highly unique needs between PI’s research activities, individual labs remain a logical approach.

On the theme of collaboration and interaction between faculty and students, how does the building score?

Traditionally, there have been two distinct viewpoints on the ideal location for PI offices relative to the labs: adjacent for maximum supervision, or as remote as possible for privacy while trusting the grad students to manage the labs on a day to day basis. Burke includes both approaches, with clusters of offices completely outside of the “lab block” as well as a cluster at the end of the lab corridor. Both support structured interaction between faculty and staff; however, spontaneous “moments of learning” require another type of space.

This is where having the grad student collaboration spaces punctuating the length of the lab corridor – between both office clusters – pays dividends, beyond increased safety. These spaces support these valuable interactions – learning moments – with both visual and physical proximity to the labs. This, too, is a precursor to what we now think of as “huddle spaces” and interaction areas, which we regularly program into research environments and strategically locate at the intersection of research and workplace spaces.

What have been the challenges in introducing new research programs?

All good research buildings are planned to accommodate modifications, both in the floor planning and in the infrastructure. In Burke, the overall floor layouts and lab-friendly structural bays enabled easy integration of new research programs. The main lab utilities distribution pathway was designed into the plenum above the lab corridor ceiling, leaving clear space for additional utilities. However, after 30-plus years, much of that clear space had been claimed (as intended!), so we had to be a bit more creative to make the necessary connections. With the close collaboration of our MEP engineering partners, we were able to make the necessary extensions and connections to utility mains and head end equipment with a minimum disruption to adjoining areas.

So what’s the conclusion?

Burke is standing the test of time very well. All safety innovations are great investments, particularly when integrated into the architecture to make them easily accessible, as we did with Burke. Our modular planning has paid dividends with every renovation project across the life of the facility. Working collaboratively with the MEP team to design an expandable lab utilities distribution system does the same.

We’re pleased and humbled to be working in Burke again, collaborating with Dartmouth to bolster their research programs.
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Edwin Hargrave is a Principal at TRIA Architects.

From Concept to Competitive Advantage

TRIA’s Emma Pina (COO & Associate Principal) recently attended a roundtable discussion, “AI in CRE,” hosted by the Building Owners and Managers Association of Boston (BOMA Boston). Our key takeaways:

The implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) in commercial real estate is no longer speculative or experimental; it’s a fully realized shift, actively reshaping how buildings are operated, designed, and experienced. From owners to architects, every player in the CRE ecosystem now faces the same reality: AI isn’t just a tool, it’s a strategy.

Across portfolios, AI is being used to enhance decision-making, streamline operations, and unlock value from data that until recently was siloed or underutilized. Whether it’s optimizing energy consumption in office towers, forecasting lease renewals, informing smarter site selection, or designing a space, AI-driven insights are pushing the industry toward greater efficiency and intelligence.

For building owners, architects, and the ecosystem the question is no longer how to use AI but rather how do we implement it across our process. The endgame for early adopters is clear: faster, more accurate decisions; cost reductions; and increased returns on investment. In other words, those who move early gain a distinct competitive advantage.

Preparing for AI integration requires more than just purchasing software or hiring consultants. It starts with understanding what problems AI can solve within your specific portfolio. Clear goals must be defined, current performance benchmarks established, and existing workflows examined for compatibility. As one panelist in a recent industry roundtable put it, AI works best when it’s embedded seamlessly into business processes—not when it’s bolted on as an afterthought.

Central to this is data. Without accurate, well-structured, centralized data, even the most powerful AI platforms will fall short. The value of AI is only as strong as the data it pulls from. Companies must prioritize data normalization, creating consistency across their systems to ensure AI outputs are reliable, actionable, and trustworthy.

While owners and operators focus on systems and strategy, architects occupy a critical space in the AI transformation. We are not only expected to understand and adopt emerging AI tools for our own workflows, but we also influence how technology is integrated into the buildings themselves. Architects are active participants in this evolution, and we have a responsibility to stay informed and lead conversations about how AI can enhance smart building operations, tenant engagement, and long-term sustainability.

In practice, AI is already reshaping design itself. Data gathered from sensors, occupancy analytics, and user behavior feedback helps architects rethink how space is planned, utilized, and experienced. We’re designing differently—more responsively, more dynamically—because we’re no longer guessing how a space will be used, we’re learning from it. Air quality, daylight access, thermal comfort, and acoustics are no longer abstract design considerations; they’re measurable, data-informed variables that can be continuously optimized.

But successful AI deployment goes deeper than choosing the right tools. As several experts in our roundtable discussion (Aaron Franczyk, BrainBox AI/Trane; Dave Miller, Leading Edge Design Group; Timothy Shaw, Metropolis; Jeff Thompson, JLL) emphasized, there’s a science to getting it right. First, define the specific business outcomes AI should support. Then, integrate AI into processes in a way that complements (not complicates) existing workflows. Most importantly, ensure that everyone in the organization can understand and use AI outputs. AI should simplify decision-making, not obscure it.

Panelists also emphasized that AI security is a critical issue. As AI adoption increases, so do the risks associated with data management, especially when data is fed into third-party or non-proprietary platforms. This raises a vital need for companies to develop internal AI governance policies. Clear boundaries must be established around how client data is handled; who has access; and how information is stored, shared, and protected. The future of AI in real estate will likely involve proprietary platforms, secure environments, and tokenized access systems that provide both innovation and data control.

At the executive level, one persistent question remains: Is it working? To answer this, businesses must establish baseline metrics before deployment of KPI. Only with a clear understanding of current performance can they measure the true impact of AI, whether that’s reduced energy costs, higher occupancy rates, or faster lease turnarounds. Without this, AI risks becoming another buzzword rather than a business enabler.

Ultimately, as AI continues to integrate into the daily workflows of commercial real estate, from design studios to asset management teams, its impact will be transformative. But it won’t be automatic. Success depends on thoughtful deployment, secure infrastructure, and a shared commitment to using data ethically and intelligently.

Yes, challenges remain especially around data fragmentation and access, but they’re solvable. And for those willing to lead rather than follow, the benefits of AI adoption are real: better buildings, more efficient operations, higher margins, and a stronger, more responsive relationship with tenants. The AI era in CRE is here; now it’s about how well we adapt.

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Since 2015, TRIA has been at the forefront of designing the human experience toward a better future, creating environments that inspire, engage, and elevate communities. From science and innovation to corporate workplace, multifamily, hospitality, mixed-use, and master planning, TRIA partners with organizations nationwide to create meaningful, enduring spaces that drive progress and transformation.

Designing the Future, Together

By Emma Pina, COO & Associate Principal

June 2025 — The Engine, Cambridge, MA

Over 150 leaders in policy, science, and entrepreneurship gathered at The Engine—MIT’s Tough Tech accelerator—for a pivotal conference exploring two key questions: Does Massachusetts still lead in Tough Tech? And where must it win next?

The State of Play

Massachusetts has long been a magnet for deep tech innovation, with leading universities, biotech giants, and world-class research. Yet, as startups like one climate-tech firm pointed out, critical infrastructure gaps—such as power availability—are forcing companies to build elsewhere.

While the Mass Leads Act signals strong state support, leaders warned that high business costs, complex permitting, and inadequate manufacturing readiness threaten the state’s position. States like Texas and North Carolina are attracting startups with lower costs, accessible land, and faster build-out timelines.

TRIA’s experience closely aligns with the insights shared by the conference speakers — we’re observing a clear trend among our Massachusetts-based clients exploring out-of-state opportunities, particularly for production manufacturing. However, a significant number still choose to remain and invest locally. For clients pursuing relocation or expansion, we partner with specialized firms focused on site selection and incentive negotiation to strategically support their real estate decisions. As architects, we play a critical role in shaping these projects: translating client goals into tailored programs that align with budgetary requirements while maximizing value and efficiency.

Where Should Massachusetts Win?

The conference panels called for:

• Greater investment in climate tech, AI, and advanced manufacturing
• Improved permitting processes and lower operational friction
• Vocational training to grow the technical workforce
• Repurposing existing buildings for industrial use—with power, logistics, and permitting in mind
• Enhanced accessibility through improved roads, expanded public transportation, and additional transit options connecting areas beyond Greater Boston for decentralized development
• Supporting startups graduating from their incubator spaces by guiding them through establishing their first R&D lab and cGMP space, streamlining the entire process

As architects, we fully support the panel’s recommendations—TRIA has collaborated closely with developers, actively participating in working sessions to address the challenges identified by the panelists. This has led to successful outcomes, including at a manufacturing site and recently with a battery manufacturing firm selecting a site in Massachusetts.

While there can be friction when aligning the interests of state agencies, brokers, and developers, we’ve found that when the ecosystem comes together, remarkable results are possible.

The Architect’s Role in Tough Tech

Architects can be powerful allies in reshaping the Tough Tech landscape. From designing flexible, power-ready spaces to reimagining underused buildings for scale-up needs, architecture directly influences time-to-market and startup viability. Architects who understand regulatory hurdles, utility demands, and the unique needs of science-based ventures can help streamline the path from prototype to production.

A Design Challenge Worth Solving

Massachusetts has the ingredients to lead—but leadership must be intentional. As one panelist said, “We can’t build the future if we don’t build for it.” We call upon architects, policymakers, and technologists to collaborate now to ensure that the next generation of transformative companies can grow and stay in the Commonwealth.

Since 2015, TRIA has been at the forefront of designing the human experience toward a better future, creating environments for some of the top science and technology clients in the nation: over 15 million square feet of holistically designed, innovative spaces supporting over 25,000 scientists and researchers delivering scientific breakthroughs.

Download this article as PDF.

Proven Research Groups Consolidation Models

By Edwin Hargrave

Is it possible to reduce your footprint, increase your headcount, endure a relocation, and still be excited to come to work and be productive?

In this paper, TRIA Principal Edwin Hargrave, AIA will share how we’ve done it, including a look at relevant planning metrics and a case study.

TRIA’s data-driven planning metrics include overall area allocations, area allocations by space function, and area allocations for equipment and furnishings, all on a headcount basis. While these metrics will vary, they tend to fall within predictable ranges for specific branches of science; we’re able to use those ranges to right-size the overall program and its various components and deliver a highly functional space.

Key takeaways: to ensure success, you must define and quantify all programmatic requirements at the outset of the project, use consistent metrics to level the programmatic requirements, and conduct a transparent and inclusive planning process.

Read the full whitepaper here.

This article initially appeared in Lab Manager on June 7, 2021.

The outlook is mixed for lab design and construction opportunities, according to a quarterly index that tracks proposal activity across various construction markets. Performance data for medical laboratories and pharmaceutical production facilities suggest substantial medium-term and long-term growth, while professionals working in education-based laboratories report weaker than average activity.

Every quarter since 2003, PSMJ—a publisher, education provider, and advisor on architecture and engineering business management—has measured the health of the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry by collecting proposal activity data from firm leaders. In addition to 12 major markets served by their US- and Canada-based AEC clients, PSMJ tracks the fortunes of 58 submarkets, including some that are completely or partly composed of laboratory facilities.

Among submarkets, the medical laboratory sector has shown consistent strength for several years. Its net plus/minus index (NPMI)—which measures the difference between the percentage of respondents seeing growth in the market and those seeing a decline—was in the middle of the pack for the first quarter of 2021. However, that was off a fourth quarter in which it reported the sixth-highest NPMI of all submarkets.

In contrast, results for education labs have been historically erratic. This includes a stretch of five consecutive quarters, beginning prior to the onset of the pandemic, in which more respondents said that proposal activity was slowing than growing. Education labs broke the streak in the first quarter of 2021, recording an NPMI of 13 percent. However, this was still in the bottom third of all submarkets in a quarter that saw 54 of the submarkets improve on their prior quarter result.

“We tend to see larger swings in lab-related submarkets,” says Greg Hart, a PSMJ consultant and manager of the Quarterly Market Forecast (QMF) survey. “Labs seem to respond more quickly than other submarkets to market conditions, which we believe accounts for much of that volatility. We saw this during the pandemic as medical labs and pharmaceutical projects remained relatively active, while education-based labs struggled.”

Hart adds that all laboratory-related markets will likely see a bounce if President Biden’s proposed infrastructure plan passes. It includes $220-billion for public and private lab-related projects, including $30 billion in research and development aimed at spurring jobs in rural areas and $40 billion to upgrade physical infrastructure of research labs in federal and university settings, according to Roll Call.

The pharmaceutical production submarket, which is composed partly of laboratory work, recorded an NPMI in the top quartile for the first quarter. This marked an impressive recovery from late 2019 when it was among the worst-performing submarkets in the survey. While 62 percent of the respondents that work on pharmaceutical production projects reported growth in the January to March 2021 period, only five percent saw a decline (resulting in its best-ever NPMI of 57 percent).

Labs supplant commercial developments

The PSMJ data indicates that privately funded lab facilities are currently outperforming those that rely on public funds. It also supports a trend seen in some of the leading geographic markets for life sciences development, such as Boston and San Francisco, in which projects originally slated for commercial or residential purposes are being reconfigured into science-based facilities.

David Giangrande, a professional engineer and the manager of Massachusetts operations for Connecticut-based GM2, Inc., says that he has had multiple commercial projects altered midstream in this way. “Projects we were designing a year or so ago for office space or mixed-use retail/residential are now going to be life sciences buildings with lab facilities,” says Giangrande, whose Somerville, Massachusetts-based firm, Design Consultants, Inc. merged with Glastonbury-based GM2 in December 2020. “These are all privately funded projects, and we’re seeing a mixture of lab space, office space, and even manufacturing.”

The lab market boom in greater Boston is the catalyst behind the rapid rise of TRIA, a Boston-based architecture and interior design firm that has grown to 50 people in just six years. Co-founder and principal Jeannie Thacker says that her firm experienced some delayed projects during the pandemic, but remained busy throughout. As the world returns to normalcy, she anticipates a bump in lab development activity in the coming months.

“As we get to the other side of the pandemic, we’re seeing more of our biotech clients getting back to a sense of normalcy, and we’re helping them define what that is going to be,” says Thacker, who held research positions with Harvard Medical School and Takeda Pharmaceuticals before becoming an architect. “They had plans and made investments prior to the pandemic, and they’re starting to ramp back up on the projects they put on hold.”

Thacker notes that more lab-based projects are being combined with the manufacturing function, resulting in different needs for utilities, transportation, and logistics, and other support systems that normally would not be necessary for a lab facility. This ties in with the trend of repurposing commercial buildings, as their size and location facilitate the ability to perform both roles at the same site.

This may also help explain another trend that Giangrande is seeing—laboratory facilities located in the heart of vibrant commercial and retail areas. “They’re not sticking these facilities on large lots in a suburban area or industrial park,” he says. “Lab space can be anywhere. The buildings we’re working on are prominently positioned in central urban locations.”

While the thriving life sciences and lab business has driven her firm’s success, Thacker worries that the recent heightened public interest has tempted many new vendor entrants to the industry. “There’s so much technical expertise required to execute these project types and this surge is stressing an already limited pool of talent,” she says. “Labs are our life blood; it’s what we do and have always done, and we are in it for the long haul. I’m hoping that the pandemic has helped to emphasize just how amazing this industry is, and that we will get an influx of people who are just as excited as we are about the small part we play in getting drugs to patients and advancing scientific discovery.”

Education research is huge with potential to grow

All research needs to be considered in context, so it is important to note that the PSMJ data tracks trends in markets and submarkets without regard to their relative size. The QMF is designed to give a longer-term view than most research because it focuses on one of the earliest measurable data points, proposal activity.

Despite the tepid pace of growth for education labs over time, the market is huge. According to a National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) report published by the National Science Board (NSB) in 2020, academic institutions historically perform about 10 to 15 percent of total US R&D, including about half of all U.S. basic research.

“In inflation-adjusted dollars, total academic research and development (R&D) has grown every year since 1975,” the report states. “Academic institutions in the United States performed $79.4 billion in R&D in 2018, and they have long been responsible for performing about half of all US basic research. Nearly two of every three academic R&D dollars supports basic research, whereas both applied research and development receive smaller but growing shares.”

Kevin Hinrichs, president of California-based architecture, interior design, and design strategy firm Taylor Design, says that the market for education labs is in funding limbo as it waits for the smoke to clear from the pandemic. “Uncertainty is the enemy,” says Hinrichs, whose firm’s lab portfolio spans the healthcare, higher education, and government research markets. “States are starting to set their fiscal year 2022 budgets, and their level of higher education funding may largely depend on how well they weathered the pandemic. Federal funding seems likely to increase under the new administration, but It is still in a transition phase, which adds more to the uncertainty.”

The NCSES study (“Academic Research and Development” by Josh Trapani and Michael Gibbons) notes that the federal government is the largest financial supporter of academic R&D, providing more than half of total funds in 2018 (the last year with reliable statistics). After several years of declining levels, federal funding for academic R&D increased by five percent from 2015 through 2018, in inflation-adjusted dollars. Institutional support has increased more rapidly and represents an increasingly larger share of total academic R&D. In 2018, institutional funds constituted more than one-quarter of university R&D, up from less than one-fifth in 2010.

According to NCSES, academic institutions added more than 38 million net assignable square feet (NASF) of science and engineering (S&E) research space between 2007 and 2019, reaching a total of 227.3 million NASF at research-performing universities and colleges in fiscal year 2019. Research space in the biological and biomedical sciences accounted for about 40 percent of this growth.

Growth factors in place

Even prior to the deadly pandemic that shut down much of the world in 2020, the outlook was highly optimistic for growth in lab design and construction opportunities. As the population ages, average life spans increase, and scientific breakthroughs inspire the need for further research and development activities, lab submarkets across all sectors seem primed for a boom.

As noted above, the pharmaceutical production’s first quarter NPMI achieved its highest level since PSMJ added submarkets to its survey in 2006. Medical laboratories hit its second-highest point in the fourth quarter of 2020 with an NPMI of 54 percent, topped only by a 56 percent recorded in the fourth quarter of 2006.

For the education lab market, in particular, results from the second quarter of 2021 will be telling. It has been among the weakest submarkets for nearly three years, and the first quarter has historically been its best by a wide margin. Will it revert to form and backslide in the second quarter, or will increased government investment, a strong economy, and favorable demographic and societal factors drive a resurgence? PSMJ releases its second quarter QMF survey results in mid-July.