chem1st Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 There are many housing crisis, all over the world, in this country we have the human housing crisis, particularly for the young, immigrants and single men. We also have a pigeon housing crisis. And there is also the housing crisis of chemists! We need to build better. We need stable homes for people. We need dovecotes for pigeons. And we need labs for our chemists. Until the 1990s, Oxford had three separate chemistry departments: inorganic; organic; and physical and theoretical. After the three departments formally merged, each still had their own, old, building. ‘In the new building, all the organic chemists are in here, but there are also at least some of the inorganic and the theoretical and physical chemists,’ says Softley. ‘The plan was to integrate ourselves more into a single department. Having these open meeting spaces has certainly helped a lot in terms of doing that.’ Oxford is currently in the process of raising funds for a second new building to house the rest of the department still in their old labs. The experience with the Chemistry Research Laboratory, positive and negative, will certainly help to inform the new design, says Softley. One deliberate design element that has worked well was the use of repeating, generic, modular lab space. ‘The principle there was flexibility,’ he says. Expanding research groups can easily adopt more space, and vice versa. ‘Every year we re-evaluate how much space everybody needs, and as the space is quite generic that certainly helps.’ Unfortunately, the building itself cannot be expanded quite so easily. Designed to accommodate 440 people, it currently has 600 people working there. ‘We are a growing department, one of the largest in the world, and we’ve got a lot of new people whose research groups are expanding,’ Softley says. Squeezing more people into the building is causing problems; for example, whether the air-handling systems can cope with the number of fume hood sashes that are open at any one time. ‘We’re having some issues at the moment just because we are trying to make maximum use of the building and are putting some strain on it. We’re learning some lessons there about specifications of buildings and how they work when you really push them hard, seven to eight years into occupancy. It just increases the pressure on us to get the new building,’ he adds. http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2012/12/lab-building-design?q=node/1140 Much like social housing, if there ain't enough to go around, you suffer from overcrowding, and that leads to further problems. If you haven't got enough lab to share amongst the chemists, you're going to have problems. The UK needs more lab space. Sheffield could provide this, along with much needed social housing and dovecotes. Can we build better? Or course we can, but will we? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metalman Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 This one's pretty tenuous even for you. Of course you might ask yourself why Oxford took on lots of new people with expanding research groups if they hadn't got anywhere to put them - it's called planning, after all. Even ignoring that, I'm not convinced that the UK does need more lab space: there have been several well publicised closures of large pharmaceutical companies in recent years so if they really wanted somewhere to move to, I'm sure they'd have picked one of them. What's absolutely certain is they're not going to come to Sheffield. Edited to add: since you can't get to that content without being an RSC member, it appears, surprisingly, that chem1st might actually be a chemist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxmaximus Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 If we must build more houses then we should build down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Penistone999 Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 Hey, hes back . i was getting worried , over a week without a housing thread .:hihi: Only joking Buddy . ---------- Post added 03-01-2013 at 19:52 ---------- There are many housing crisis, all over the world, in this country we have the human housing crisis, particularly for the young, immigrants and single men. We also have a pigeon housing crisis. And there is also the housing crisis of chemists! We need to build better. We need stable homes for people. We need dovecotes for pigeons. And we need labs for our chemists. The other week it was Chincilla`s ,now Pigeons ................ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altus Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 The other week it was Chincilla`s ,now Pigeons ................ I pointed out in his last thread about this that your typical city pigeon is a rock dove that likes living on cliffs - not in dovecotes. Tall buildings, at least the ones with ledges, in cities more closely resemble their natural habitat than dovecotes do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chem1st Posted January 3, 2013 Author Share Posted January 3, 2013 I pointed out in his last thread about this that your typical city pigeon is a rock dove that likes living on cliffs - not in dovecotes. Tall buildings, at least the ones with ledges, in cities more closely resemble their natural habitat than dovecotes do. Build the dovecotes and then they will come! Every Greggs should have a dovecote! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
biotechpete Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 This one's pretty tenuous even for you. Of course you might ask yourself why Oxford took on lots of new people with expanding research groups if they hadn't got anywhere to put them - it's called planning, after all. Even ignoring that, I'm not convinced that the UK does need more lab space: there have been several well publicised closures of large pharmaceutical companies in recent years so if they really wanted somewhere to move to, I'm sure they'd have picked one of them. What's absolutely certain is they're not going to come to Sheffield. Edited to add: since you can't get to that content without being an RSC member, it appears, surprisingly, that chem1st might actually be a chemist. I wouldn't be so sure. The UK pharma companies are very keen to establish direct links with universities, such as this in Manchester: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=7950 There's no real reason why Sheffield couldn't be doing similar things in other research areas. It's about having a plan. One thing is for certain, investing in scientific research certainly reaps economic benefits which is why there has been great investment in multidisciplinary centres. http://www.crick.ac.uk/the-institute Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
metalman Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 I wouldn't be so sure. The UK pharma companies are very keen to establish direct links with universities, such as this in Manchester: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/display/?id=7950 There's no real reason why Sheffield couldn't be doing similar things in other research areas. It's about having a plan. One thing is for certain, investing in scientific research certainly reaps economic benefits which is why there has been great investment in multidisciplinary centres. http://www.crick.ac.uk/the-institute Oh absolutely, I just meant that the University of Oxford won't be solving their overcrowding problem by shifting some of their excess staff off to a lab in Sheffield! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chem1st Posted January 3, 2013 Author Share Posted January 3, 2013 Oh absolutely, I just meant that the University of Oxford won't be solving their overcrowding problem by shifting some of their excess staff off to a lab in Sheffield! There's plenty of our own that could be hired up here and more trained every year... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longcol Posted January 3, 2013 Share Posted January 3, 2013 The other week it was Chincilla`s ,now Pigeons ................ I think he's starting a menagerie - most "problems" the OP brings to SF are menagerie problems to the rest of us................... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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