- Campus
- 05/09/2025
Gemini-North: delays, water damage, but beautiful new labs
The relocation of research groups to the renovated Gemini-North building has been quite an undertaking. Now, five months after its official handover, most issues seem to have been resolved, and many staff members from the Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME) are already making use of their brand-new labs. Section heads Niels Deen and Jaap den Toonder share their experiences.
After roughly two years of renovations, the renovated Gemini-North was officially handed over on Friday, March 14 of this year. The building, as before, is primarily home to staff and students of the Department of Mechanical Engineering (ME). It now houses lecture rooms, workspaces, and the laboratories of the department’s many research groups. But the relocation process was anything but smooth.
The handover was delayed, labs required additional modifications, and a flood in the new building further complicated the move. For staff within the research groups, the relocation has been especially challenging—though the degree to which it disrupted their work varied greatly between teams. Niels Deen and Jaap den Toonder, section heads of the Power & Flow and Microsystems groups, respectively, discuss their experiences moving into Gemini-North.
A total of seven labs have been relocated to Gemini-North: the ME research groups Dynamics and Control, Robotics, Energy Technology, Control Systems Technology, Power & Flow, and Microsystems. In addition, the Darcy Lab of Applied Physics & Science Education has also moved in, and is shared with the Energy Technology group.
A rushed move
During the renovation, ME research groups scheduled to move into Gemini-North were temporarily housed in various other campus buildings. The labs of Power & Flow and Energy Technology were based in the Connector building. When the Gemini-North handover was delayed but plans to demolish Connector went ahead, Deen’s group was forced to move sooner than planned. “That meant we had to relocate from Connector to Gemini-North more quickly than was ideal,” Deen recalls. “The result was that we found ourselves in a building where we couldn’t immediately start working.”
Adjusting plans
When Power & Flow moved into Gemini-North at the end of March, contractor Heijmans had just completed the initial renovation contract. But their work wasn’t entirely finished. “Plans for our labs—covering all of our needs and requirements—were drawn up three years ago, before the renovation even started,” Deen explains. “For example, back then we hadn’t anticipated working with hydrogen on such a large scale.”
As a result, additional hydrogen outlets needed to be installed after the handover. And because hydrogen is highly explosive, extra safety measures were required, including extra ventilation above every hydrogen tap. “On top of that, we don’t just have one setup, we have around twenty,” Deen adds. “Each one needs a range of utilities: multiple gases, heavy-duty power connections, cooling water. It’s not the physical moving that takes time, but the preparations, waiting for the building to be fully equipped and then reconnecting everything.”
Not all research groups faced the same level of disruption as Deen and his group. “I suspect other groups had a smoother transition because they needed fewer modifications or could stay longer in their temporary location,” Deen notes.
A more comfortable situation
Jaap den Toonder, section head of Microsystems, confirms this. His research group spent the renovation period in a specially built temporary facility located between Gemini and MetaForum. “From the outside, it looks like a container, but inside it’s a fully equipped lab with everything we need. In that sense, we were very lucky,” he says.
Unlike Power & Flow, Microsystems did not move back into Gemini-North right after its completion. Like several other groups, they too requested adjustments and additional features that could only be implemented after the official handover. “These weren’t major changes. We wanted more robust and adjustable taps, and some components had long delivery times,” Den Toonder explains.
As a result, his team opted to stay longer in their temporary location. His situation is different from Deen’s group because he didn’t face a strict deadline to vacate their temporary space. Den Toonder explains there are already other “residents” waiting to move in. “Fortunately, they understand our situation, so we can stay here until our lab in Gemini-North is fully ready,” he says.
Water damage
That flexibility proved fortunate, because disaster struck on Saturday, June 28, when a defective coupling in a water pipe bursts, flooding the entire basement of Gemini-North with several centimeters of water. “Our new lab is in the basement, and water naturally flows downward,” Den Toonder says. “We’re located almost directly beneath the leak, so our lab was hit the hardest.” Luckily, the group had not yet relocated their equipment. “We have very expensive equipment—if we’d already moved in, the damage would have been catastrophic.”
Other research groups, including Deen’s, already moved to the new building when the leak occurred. “The pipe burst on the first floor, and our labs are on ground and basement level,” Deen explains. “Our damage was limited, but many of our steel cabinets started rusting right away.” On top of that the flood caused an additional delay of a few weeks. “Moisture seeped into the walls and floors, and everything had to dry out. We had to move a lot of setups again,” Deen says. According to him the whole process demanded a lot of patience from the staff, but many colleagues actively pitched in during the flooding. By now, most of the lab is fully up and running. "Thankfully.”
Due to the water damage in the Microsystems lab, the entire floor had to be replaced. As a result, Den Toonder’s group remains in its temporary building. They’re aiming to move into Gemini-North by late 2025 or early 2026, though “the timeline isn’t final yet,” he notes.
Seriously solid labs
Despite the setbacks, both Deen and Den Toonder are enthusiastic about their new labs. “The renovation has given us seriously solid labs with excellent facilities,” Deen says. “In the old building, every new setup we made, required us to retrofit all the necessary connections. Now we have a high-quality infrastructure already in place. We’re future-proof.” Den Toonder is also positive about this new step. “Our lab was really due for an upgrade. Thanks to the renovation, we can continue working with these new facilities for many years to come.”
Impact on master’s graduates and PhD candidates
Moving disruptions are not unusual, but what about the students and PhD candidates who work under strict deadlines?
Both section heads say their groups managed to minimize the impact. Because Microsystems hasn’t yet moved back, Den Toonder points to their earlier relocation—from the old Gemini-North to the temporary facility—as an example. “We knew the move was coming, so we planned around it,” he says. Experimental work was scheduled before the move, while the transition period—when experiments weren’t possible—was dedicated to analyzing and writing up results. “If something really couldn’t wait, students could go to other universities to conduct their experiments.”
Deen’s group took a similar approach, though outsourcing experiments wasn’t an option for them. “Most of our setups are custom-built, so you won’t find them elsewhere,” he explains. He admits that for PhD candidates, in particular, the relocation was challenging. “It was frustrating, of course, but we’re an inventive bunch. One thing I appreciate about this organization is that it’s full of engineers who love solving problems. We always find a way.”
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