Here at the Broad there seems to be a constant re-construction of the work-space going on. In fact since I started here I’m not sure if there’s ever been a time when some part of the building wasn’t being torn apart and reorganized. My collegue Abderrahim and I have been displaced twice already due to this construciton and apparently in an upcoming phase of the process we will be displaced yet again, although in theory we’ll eventually end up back in our current space after the work is done.

In preparation for our potential move we were actually asked if there was anything necessary to make our temporary accomodations more suitable to the work we undertake. Since the proposed new space (a decontaminated, decomissioned BL 2 lab) is situated next to another area (the weighing room) owned by our team, we thought possibly we might be able to combine the two spaces in some way, potentially by expanding through the separating drywall.

Not knowing how far the facilities folks would be willing to go in reorganizing the space I drew up several proposals of how the space might be arranged to our advantage, a few of which are detailed below:

Drawings are to scale except for wall thickness which I found difficult to estimate accurately.

After reviewing these proposals the facilities folks informed us that Proposal 1 was out. Breaking through the drywall would not be feasable since that wall contained a significant amount of plumbing and electrical conduit.

Sadly, though I had a warm place in my heart for it, Proposal 3 was rejected as well. No reason was given for the rejection, though I suppose the high pricetag on research grade ethanol stock solutions might have something to do with it.

Ultimately it looks like they’ll be implementing Proposal 2, most likely due to it’s simplicity.