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New Building Update

05/03/2024

outside - small

Latest news

We're excited to bring you the latest images from our new building! As you can see the scaffolding is finally down and the new facility looks beautiful in early spring sunshine. Things are really taking shape inside as well now, and we have many exciting developments to share. The facility is an essential part of our strategy to drive down lead-times and meet the long-term growth in sample support requirements in the cryo-electron microscopy community, and we're really pleased with the rapid progress towards the realisation of our plans. Take a look below to see the labs and offices really starting to take shape.

 

As the construction project makes progress, every spare space in both the old and new buildings is filling up with equipment waiting to be installed. Fingers crossed we can start commissioning before we run out of room for our team! Let's take a look at how it's going...

boxes and boxes - new proportion

 

There's plenty of cabling and connections needed for a modern production facility. The picture on the right is just the off-cuts from a single day, to give you an idea of the scale of the task our engineer has to deal with!

fully connected - new proportion

 

But as a manufacturing plant, we need more than the efficient transfer of electrons around the building. We're also working hard on all the necessary services: heat, light, electricity, technical gases...

technical gasses and wires - new proportion

 

Offices are easier to get ready to use than the laboratories. And here's our managing director's office and the conference room - both with beautiful views over the local countryside! It'll be a pleasure to work and visit here.

conference and office

 

While the managing director has a beautiful new office, we've not forgotten the workers: there's a lovely new kitchen and break room, and a gorgeous patio to sit out on in the summer. Unfortunately it was a bit too damp to try out when we visited!

kitchen and patio - new proportion

 

We're expanding into new space - not abandoning the old very useful space: here's the corridor from the new building foyer to the current facility. Beautiful, light and airy!

building connected 4

 

With two floors we need to move equipment and goods of all sizes (plus people as well!) up and down. There's a normal lift - but we've also installed a dumbwaiter to move grids directly between production stations with minimum risk of damage or contamination.

lifts-2

 

We take our commitment to sustainability seriously: even the protective covers that ensure our floors are not damaged while construction continues have been made from recycled chicken stock cartons!

sustainability - chicken stock - 2

 

 
We hope you've enjoyed this latest update about the new facility. As you can see, we're almost ready to start counting down to the open ceremony: who do you think we should ask to open the building and who should receive the very first grids produced in the new building? Let us know your thoughts now at marketing@quantifoil.com!
If you've missed the story so far, catch up on previous episodes here: