You simply cannot rush a masterpiece: The new veterinary building is catching up

The move to Ås was planned for a long time ago, and since I moved to Ås there has not been a single semester without someone saying “They are coming!”. The building has been delayed multiple times, but it wasn’t until this summer that the veterinary students were told at they would be able to meet up at Campus Ås. Multiple veterinary students moved to Ås, but professors and apprenticeships would not be accompanying the move.

Journalist: Bjørnar Djupevik Hagen
Photographer: Nathalie Genevieve Bjørneby
Translator: Kristian Bones Enger

Done by 2019
Huge information boards on campus are constantly reminding us that we were supposed to be united in 2019, but we had already received a message in 2018 about this being postponed until 2020. We met up with Ingrid Ones, who started the veterinary course in 2018, and moved straight to Ås with plans of commuting for a year. Ingrid moved here with a husband and child. She is one of the rare species called an adult. The family planning stretches out for six years ahead of time, as she will then graduate and can go back home so that her daughter can start primary school in her hometown in the western part of Norway.

Done by who knows when
There was an intense clean up and relocation mood at Adamstuen in January. In February, Ingrid and the students starting in 2018 received the message about the postponing. They had to stay behind and finish their lab work at Adamstuen until October. The questions were piling up. No cafeteria, applying for student accommodations in October, GP (General practitioner), SiO/SiÅs and digial teaching? The answers were few and standardised, either “No” or “You will be fine”. After lockdown, the rest of the veterinarians received the same message, with everything being postponed, and move in may or may not happen in January. The entire building project was hit by uncertainty, and on a construction site with 800 workers, crisis meetings were bound to happen every morning.

Asked, but not received
There were sporadic updates from NMBU, and one was asked to send in cases to the class representatives. Ingrid, who lives in Ås, was now pregnant with her second child, and less flexible than your regular student. Kindergarten had reduced opening hours, the commute took three hours per day, her husband would support her in every way he could, but it was still not enough. Obligatory attendance was difficult, and lectures were never streamed. She would often have to explain her situation, in regards to NMBU asking for feedback. Covid aided in easing many of her problems, as digital learning became a thing and she didn’t have to commute anymore.
During a professional course, postponing or taking an exam over again might be so difficult that you would have to drop down a year.
Exams are therefore a worry, since more people want to show up in person despite lighter symptoms. She is now hopeful that the last few promises of moving is intact, as she is mainly focused on being able to begin in Ås.

Hospital and opera
We met up with two happy fellas from Statsbygg, who were ecstatic from the enthusiasm for the building they sorely want to hand over to students and employees. Project director Kim Østensen (49) welcomed us with open arms, while introducing us to Per Roar Nordby (62) who is the project chief for tools and equipments. They work together effectively who are highly engaged with the building that they have made and turned our interview into a real pain for me, as I wanted to ask them critical questions. From previous experience, Kim pointed out that he had worked on Østlandet sykehus, and Per Roar had worked on the Oslo Opera. Hospital and opera is a good metaphor for the building.
Together they both know all there is to know about the building, one with responsibility for the building masses, and the other for ten thousands of articles, which range from door stoppers to lab equipment, which are all going in to this building. Before we can understand the postponing, we need to understand the building, as it is quite complex.

Weird patients
The veterinary building is in many ways a hospital, with a big variation in patients. They normally weight between 20 grams and one tonne, some with lungs, none can speak Norwegian and they defecate at any point in time. The patients are so primitive that they don’t wear shoes, so the floors are layered with a special granulate to preserve animal feet. Train tracks in the ceiling with powerful elevators makes it easy to move larger patients, and Kim says that if need be, one could treat an elephant here.

Fresh air
The ventilation received a special focus in such a building, as operating rooms demand pressure from above, so that microbes can’t enter and fester in open wounds. A laboratory, however, requires pressure from down below, so that nothing dangerous or contagious can escape. This is of course making it as simple as can be, as there are so many different rooms to accommodate for, so that everything can work in harmony. During our trip through the building, we passed by many pressure locks, and we were even allowed to see a room, which was one hundred meters long, with ventilation pipes in all shapes and sizes that protruded through the ground, came from the ceiling and twisted around each other in a almost sensual, metallic snake dance on their way to each respective HEPA-filter. “No, you can’t say that this building is Covid safe. But it has a better air quality than what you are used to in your classrooms”. Entire floors are filled exclusively with ventilation pipes. For one lab, there is often two-three floors with ventilation, so a 100 m2  lab may take up as much as 400 m2 of floor space.

Boiling water is better than alcohol
The water than runs out will also receive a special treatment, as nothing that is contagious can escape the building (not even animals). In the basement, all water pipes are laid out easily accessible by a plumber, and everything has to be high pressure boiled by 160-170°C before it can run out.
The energy demand to warm up water and air is more or less going to be covered by Statkraft Varme, which was built together with the new veterinary building. The incineration plant is literally only a breath away.

The delays
A highly technological building such as this one is designed in constant contact with the ones using it, and during the 12 years since the agreement of co-locating this, the need and number of scientific employees has changed a lot. Per Roar, who has been around since the beginning of the project, says that this is a big part of the reason for why the building was not done in 2019. It has been more complicated and challenging than first expected.
Covid is the reason for why the building is postponed further. The boiling plant in the basement was supposed to arrive from the US, many workers were to come from Poland and the Baltics, and other suppliers were from Germany, Austria and China to name a few. The hospital equipment they needed had a mellow atmosphere around it regarding delivery, as many wanted to prioritise their own markets or hospitals, instead of a veterinary institute. They are openly admitting that it would have been delayed despite the virus, but it has complicated the move even more.

I am arriving
The interview happened before the last update, and project director Kim Østensen couldn’t share much about the move in, but he did say that “there will be veterinary students here before the summer”. The newest update which came post interview states that a gradual move in shall start during spring after the different grades deliver their exams. This works in regard to teaching as they have block teaching at Adamstuen. Even in December, the equine clinic is arriving, which has been unused for a year, but not renovated due to the move. Future difficulties aside, the student board leader for the veterinaries, Eidbjøg Søreide says that she is looking forward to moving!