The Feringa Building reopened on Monday. The building at Zernike was closed on Friday after a ceiling panel fell and struck someone. The person sustained minor injuries.
This weekend, the Feringa Building remained closed. All ceiling panels in the building were checked to see if there was an assembly error or if it was an isolated incident. Fortunately, it turned out to be the latter, said a UG spokesperson.
The ceiling panels, described by the spokesperson as ‘substantially large pieces’, caused only minor injuries. The panel struck the person’s shoulder, and he described it as feeling like ‘a hard punch’.
Setbacks
The Feringa Building, which cost 200 million euros, has been plagued by setbacks from the start. In 2017, the tender process was halted because the project threatened to exceed the budget.
Two years later, a legal dispute arose between the UG and several technical firms, who argued that the university had unfairly rejected their bids during the procurement process.
Construction only began in 2019, with the first section completed in October last year. Over recent months, research activities have frequently been disrupted by ongoing issues with the building’s alarm system and ventilation in the laboratories, problems that still haven’t been fully resolved.