Wageningen Technical Solutions, the combined workshop of WUR, officially reopened on Thursday afternoon. The event marked the final step in the merger of Technical Development Studio and Tupola and was celebrated in a significantly renovated Innovatron.
Until last summer, WUR operated two workshop facilities. Then, the Technical Development Studio (TDS) of Agrotechnology & Food Science merged with Tupola of the Plant Group to form Wageningen Technical Solutions (WTS). At that time, TDS was already located in Innovatron and Tupola was still in Radix. Now all the technicians are together in Innovatron, which had to undergo substantial renovations to make the building suitable for the approximately twenty technicians of Wageningen Technical Solutions – and their materials.
To make room for everyone, the former TDS shed was converted into a workspace and connected to the main, existing building of Innovatron through a canteen-like area. The passageway to Zodiac between the former Innovatron front door and the shed (see photo) has thus disappeared; the new front door is now on Bornse Weilanden.
Merging the groups was not without challenges, says electronics engineer Hans Meijer. Over time, both groups had built up a lot of materials – from small items such as screws and drill bits to large machines for sawing, welding and milling, for example. Meijer: ‘We took a critical look at what we wanted to keep and what to repurpose. Some items hadn’t been used for years, so we cleared them out. Though now, of course, we’ll probably need them again soon.’
The WUR workshop provides technical support to the entire campus. Not for building maintenance, but designing and building custom equipment for research and education. As Meijer puts it: ‘We make everything for education and research that you cannot buy.’
Want to read more about the workshop? Read about it tomorrow (16 October) in the new Resource – in the bins and online.
