New buildings

Producing nano-sized beams needs long beamlines, which, at the ESRF, will reach 120 metres and in some cases even 250 metres. A combination of two extended experimental hall buildings along with a satellite building for the very long beamline ID16 will address this need The two experimental hall buildings offer a total floor surface of 4500 sqm for new beamlines plus about 4000 sqm for laboratories and offices. Particular care and effort is being put into the design of the concrete slab of the extensions, notably where the new beamlines will be located, as its vibrational stability is key to the beamlines meeting their design performance.

A separate three-storey building will host new user support laboratories and offices.

Artist’s impression of the facade of the new buildings (Image credit: ESRF/Sud Architectes; view larger image).

Sustainable development is a major consideration in the design of the building extensions. The best proposal from an international architect competition held in 2008 was updated and refined during most of 2009, and in October of that year, a contract for the prime contractorship (maîtrise d’oeuvre) for the building extensions was awarded to the company GINGER Sechaud&Bossuyt operating from Lyon. The complexity of the specifications, and the need to meet tight budgetary and scheduling constraints, made it necessary to foresee a comparatively long and detailed design and tendering phases.

It was clear from the outset that the civil construction work must interfere as little as possible with user operations which rely on beamtime often scheduled months ahead.

As civil construction works often create vibration and other disturbances, it cannot be avoided to close the ESRF for user operations for some time during the construction. This closure has been limited to 2.5 months in addition to the regular summer and winter shutdowns, for a building construction lasting 20 months in total.

Despite a considerable reduction of the available budget to a total amount of 30.8 million Euros, the overall quality of the new buildings in terms of their technical specifications (stability - vibration and thermal), sustainable development and accessibility was maintained. All buildings roofs are to be planted with vegetation (6000 sqm in total), and the walls will have a reinforced thermal insulation and will be built from materials chosen for their environmental qualities. The three-storey labs and offices building will be accessible to people whatever their handicap.

Also, a clear objective of accident prevention, to avoid even a single accident during the building works, has been set despite many restrictions in terms of operations during the works deriving from this. Once finished, the working conditions for staff and users should be optimum, thanks to the presence of daylight in experimental areas which is not the case today, reduction and optimisation of air conditioning, good ventilation, landscaping etc.

The new buildings also comprise a 200 sqm cafeteria open 24 hours and 7 days a week and an area of 200 sqm called “The Invisible World” where the hundreds of group visits to the ESRF every year will start and end.

Construction work started in September 2011 and have seen a major milestone with the ground-breaking ceremony on 29 November 2011. This ceremony preceded an interruption of user operations between 5 December 2011 and 5 May 2012, during which excavation works and laying of foundations are taking place, which produce too many vibrations to maintain the normal high level operating conditions.

The inauguration of the new buildings is scheduled for June 2013.

The ESRF and the ILL occupy a joint site which has not seen major improvements of the common infrastructure since the inauguration of the Carl Ivar Brandén Building for the Partnership of Structural Biology. This will change soon, as French regional and local authorities have agreed to make available 18 million Euros for a new site entrance directly at the rue des Martyrs, to extend the staff restaurant and to build a large new science building with a useful floor surface of 3500 sqm where future scientific partnerships and joint projects with research institutes and universities will be hosted.

Artist’s impression of the ESRF in 2013 (Image credit: ESRF/Sud Architectes; view larger image).

Close-up view of the new buildings (Image credit: ESRF/Sud Architectes; view larger image).