There cannot be a laboratory without a workbench for the Professor to plan his science. Placing this desk in the corner means there's two walls to work with as well as blocking off a lot of the desk making it easier to fit in with the rest of the laboratory.
The wunderkammer translates from German into cabinet of curiosity. From Wikipedia:
So, in the new house we've established there's a large, concrete floored room with three walls (2 sides brick, one side fibrous cement) and panelled ceiling under the house. What's the first thing that should be done in such an area?
I'm a child of the late 80's and early 90's. Inspirations for the Prof are drawn from the media that was prevalent at the time, yes we had inspiration before the wide-spread installation of cable modems.
When my wife and I were going house hunting, I had a simple requirement for any house we were looking at. There had to be a room that could be come my 'laboratory'. Or, rather, the laboratory of Professor von Explaino. We looked at a number of houses that had spare rooms where I could have a combined study/ laboratory but we eventually found one place that was great. It was a raised 1960's house. Fibro on the top, but bricked in underneath. One side held the garage and laundry, the other had a bathroom but a large, concrete floored area that was below legal height so couldn't be classified as a room. Brick walls, concrete floor, exposed beam ceiling. Enough room that we could split it between my wife and myself so we both have some areas to indulge our hobbies.