The new Feringa Building at Zernike was closed on Friday after a ceiling panel fell and struck someone. The individual sustained minor injuries.
The building will remain closed over the weekend. All ceiling panels in the building will be inspected to determine if there was a mounting error or if this was an isolated incident, according to a spokesperson for the University of Groningen (UG).
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.