Vivarium designs for urban settings pose unique challenges: limited available space, access to supporting infrastructure, problematic adjacencies, and a range of troublesome environmental conditions. Solutions achieved in recent projects provide valuable lessons that translate to a wide variety of animal facilities. Flad's Mark Corey and Bob DeGenova will explore opportunities to optimize key vivaria design parameters using case studies of renovated, urban research facilities. They identify best practices for modifying space for programmatic flexibility and versatility, maintaining uptime during renovation, overcoming floor-to-floor and infrastructure constraints, and applying the use of swing space.