Friday Photo Shoot Out

I was sorry to miss the Shoot Out last Friday, but sometimes it just isn't possible. This week was a near thing too! I know this week is supposed to be 'Silhouettes', but 1) I don't have any particular silhouettes to show you, and 2) the Portrait of a Building theme is one I really wanted to do. So a week late:

The Centre Jean Perrin. This is our main building, devoted to patient care, seen from the doctors' parking lot and ambulance entrance out front. All this paved area is today a large hole in the ground full of machinery and preparations for laying foundations.

One day my group was having its quarterly meeting in the conference room whose windows are in the top right of the above picture. There was a tremendous amount of noise, and quite a lot of alarming vibration. It got so bad we had to move. Afterwards, I went outside and found the reason: just as we were having our meeting, they were dismantling the entryway!
This is the new entrance.
Yes, patients get lost!
Most people arrive from the back now; you only go this way to get to the regular hospital just behind me from here, or to the medical school.

Around the back, this was the entrance to the Oncogenetics department a couple of months ago.

Back up a few steps and our entrance a couple of weeks ago.

Turn around and the pit looks like this. The pit touches the foundation of our building, which shakes continuously whenever the construction crew is at work.

They gave the pit a nice smooth bottom and are now digging holes in that to lay pipes and plant columns and who knows what. At least there's no basement for this part of the new building. It's a lot of noise, though, so let's go inside.

Just inside our little porch is the genetic consultation area. This used to be an open space used for teaching school groups, and when we converted it to our area with several offices, and different rooms, there wasn't really enough space to go around.

Just go straight through the waiting area, and behind the pillar with the fire extinguisher (conveniently located right in the middle of everything!) is the door to the lab.

Here's the main lab, with its seven tiny annex rooms, each with its own function. For patients to get to the consultation these days, they actually have to cross the laboratory.

The lab is full of fun equipment, like a 454 Genome Sequencer.

And of course there are researchers doing experiments - here Maurice is experimenting on a rat. Or maybe this is what they mean by experimenting on rats.

When everything is done, the old front will be hidden by the new hospitalization building on the left. Our little building is scheduled to become the parking area to the right, and the lab will be moved into what used to be the operating theaters in the old building. Only, nobody has reserved any money for converting that space, so we'll see!

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