“People are practically hanging out the windows here, as we say in Brabant,” Spoor says about the space shortage in Flux. According to the deputy managing director of Electrical Engineering (EE), this problem has existed for a long time. “When we moved into Flux ten years ago, the building was already full right away. And since then, we’ve only continued to grow,” she explains.

Because of the shortage, Spoor sees that employees are spending less time working on campus, simply because there are not enough workstations for everyone. In the long term, the problem will be addressed through the construction of new buildings and the reorganization of existing ones, but in the short term a temporary solution was needed. “Part of that solution is now being found in Fenix.”

One hundred workstations

The Fenix building is located at the eastern edge of the campus and is best known as the home base of the university fire brigade. Until recently, however, the building also housed teaching spaces. Because these were hardly used, the space has now been made available to EE.

In total, one hundred new workstations are being created in Fenix for the department. Sixty of these are reserved for staff from four labs that are moving in their entirety, including their equipment: the Autonomous Motion Control Lab, the Eindhoven Grid Lab, and two labs from the Signal Processing Systems group. According to Spoor, this was a deliberate choice. “People need to be able to work close to their lab. If we only created individual desks here, hardly anyone would come. They might as well work from home. By relocating entire labs, workspaces and research stay together.”

The remaining forty workstations will be distributed among the rest of the department, within the groups where the need is greatest. “Of course, it doesn’t solve the whole problem, but it’s a start,” Spoor says.

Flux bursting at the seams

“Embarrassing,” that’s how Massimo Mischi describes the lack of space in Flux, as he has to tell new PhD candidates that they will not have their own desk. The full professor chairs Signal Processing Systems (SPS), one of the groups hit hard by the shortage of space in the building. Two labs—and with them about thirty of the nearly 300 researchers of the group—will soon move to Fenix. According to Mischi, that move is badly needed, as there is a severe lack of both office and meeting space.

As it stands, PhD candidates have to claim a flexible work spot through a software system in order to work on campus. “To coordinate among themselves who can be at the office and when, they’ve now set up a WhatsApp group,” Mischi says.

The lack of dedicated workspaces for PhD candidates also means that supervisors can no longer easily drop by for a quick check-in, the professor explains, because they don’t know where their PhDs are sitting—or whether they’re on campus at all. As a result, communication has become cumbersome. “For every small thing, you now have to schedule a meeting.”

But finding a place for those meetings is almost impossible, Mischi adds, because all rooms are regularly fully booked. As a result, meetings end up taking place in the hallway, in a colleague’s office, or at home, via Teams. “I’m hosting a delegation from Japan next week and I don’t have a space to receive them. Now we’re going to use an old room in another building, but that’s obviously not how I want to welcome them.”

He hopes the pressure in Flux will ease somewhat now that space is becoming available in Fenix. It’s not an ideal solution, as his group will be split across two buildings, but when the opportunity arose to move two labs to Fenix, he didn’t hesitate. “We simply needed that extra space urgently.”

Although the temporary solution in Fenix already helps a little, Mischi’s main hope lies with the construction of the new cleanroom and lab and office building in the so-called Area 19. “I think those buildings will really solve the problem.”

Spread out

Besides providing extra workstations, the move also brings a new challenge: how to keep the EE community connected when staff are working at different locations. “Ideally, you would create those extra workspaces in, on, or next to Flux,” Spoor says. “Because of the added distance, the department is now more spread out across the campus.”

To make that distance as small as possible, the route between Flux and Fenix is being improved. For example, a new entrance is being created on the west side of Fenix. “Otherwise, you first had to walk all the way around the building and enter from the east side.”

For some groups, the extra distance is offset by the new possibilities the building offers. The Autonomous Motion Control Lab, which works with drones among other things, benefits from the higher floors in Fenix. “In many cases, Flux was not high enough for their drone research, but in Fenix this is possible,” Spoor explains.

Almost finished

According to Spoor, the move to Fenix has been exceptionally fast. From idea to implementation, it took about three quarters of a year. “There’s much more involved than just moving,” she emphasizes. “We first mapped out how much space was available and which labs could technically be housed there. Then we designed and furnished the labs, including all the necessary technical connections. Finally, we relocated everything step by step.”

By now, the work in Fenix is almost complete. Only the Eindhoven Grid Lab is still under construction. The official opening of the new EE location will take place on Tuesday, March 17, during the kick-off event of 'Shaping Our Future Campus' by Campus & Facilities.

This article was translated using AI-assisted tools and reviewed by an editor.