In 2018, an initiative by EGNATON led to the establishment of an IFC4Lab project group at buildingSmart Germany. 

The aim is to develop BIM-compatible laboratory planning from the earliest phase.

At a meeting in Munich in 2014, the Technical Committee decided to give the working groups in EGNATON a joint task that would promote cooperation. 

It should be the planning of a virtual laboratory building into which all working groups would contribute their collected knowledge - an ideal and ingenious, sustainable laboratory building. CUBE is a - semantically not entirely correct - continuous project assignment that is now being worked on by around ten active people.

Legal requirements and standardisation of all kinds significantly influence the development of new laboratory buildings. 

Therefore, EGNATON is actively involved through its members and also directly in various standardisation committees to help shape the sustainable lab design of the future.

About eight years ago, working group three came up with the idea of analytically estimating the concentration of hazardous substances in the air in the laboratory when determining the risk of hazardous substances. Based on Eickmann's (2003) work, we want to develop that we can use already in hazard prognosis during laboratory planning. However, the result is far from being finished.

Digitalisation affects the laboratory world in many ways.

The project is just starting with cooperation with HIS HE and, as a cross-cutting task, will later affect the topics of almost all working groups.

Experience shows that no term is understood in the same way by all those involved in planning if it is not clearly defined the first time it is used. The more complex and multi-layered a planning situation is, the more precise expression avoids misunderstandings or misinterpretations.

Precise definitions of planning objects help us find quick and reasonable solutions in the team.

EGNATON began early in its working groups to define specific terms used repeatedly in a binding manner for all those involved.

The resulting glossary has become an indispensable tool for pre-and post-processing and during planning meetings.