Latest news

The 2012 Clay Research Conference will take place in Oxford. At the conference, the Clay Research Award will be presented to Jeremy Kahn and Vladimir Markovic:

For their work showing that a closed hypebolic three manifold has an essential immersed hyperbolic Riemann surface, i.e., the map on fundamental groups is injective.

And for their solution of the Ehrenpreis conjecture: that given any two compact hyperbolic Riemann surfaces, there are finite covers of the two surfaces which are arbitrarily close in the Teichmuller metric.

The conference will to be held June 18-19 in Martin Wood Lecture Theatre in the Physics Department. Both Kahn and Markovic will speak on their work at that occasion. Other confirmed speakers are: Artur Avila (IMPA/CNRS); Francis Brown (CNRS); Stavros Garoufalidis (GeorgiaTech); Marc Lackenby (Oxford); and Peter Scholze (Univ. of Bonn).

Registration is free but strongly recommended. Please see http://www.claymath.org/ for further information.

General

Position:- The project remains 1 week ahead of programme due to the more critical concrete pours that were advanced.

Curtain Walling Mock Up:- A mock up of the curtain walling will be erected on site in the near future.

Balustrade: Following the review of the mock up a decision has been made to now move forward with this element.

Precast Stairs: Precast stairs have started to be delivered in readiness for installation to the relevant areas.

Considerate Contractors Scheme:- CCS visited the site on 16/2/2012 and gave a positive report scoring 38/40.

Future works for March

GSHP:- The pipes that were sunk at the start of the project continue to be cropped and joined to header connection pipes that will terminate in access ducts in the plant rooms. The works are now focused in the last areas onsite working towards the corner of the central area. This is expected to be complete in the next 2 weeks.

Drainage & Basement Slab:- The more complex basement pours (3A) adjacent to the lower plantroom in the south have been largely poured. It is targeted to have all the south basement complete by the beginning of March.

Steel Beams & Columns:- Holding down bolts are fixed accurately to the formwork / reinforcement in order that steel I beams and columns can be bolted to the structure after the slab is poured. The steel column and beams are expected to be onsite week commencing 5/3/2012.

Plant Room & Services:- The service trenches to the centre have largely been excavated now that the bulk dig removal has finished. The lower level plant room walls in the south have been formed with steel reinforcement in readiness for a concrete pour.

Mezzanine Floor:- Pour No 8 on the mezzanine level of the north has been poured and core 1 twin walls have been erected. The formwork has also started on the south in one corner.

Recent Site Photos

General

Position:- The project is 1 week ahead of programme due to the more critical concrete pours being advanced.

Solar Blinds:- A mock up of the solar blinds that are going in the main entrance atria have been viewed with the Architect

Precast Columns:- Precast columns and walls continue to be delivered in line with progress on site.

Time lapse movies:- As well as the daily and monthly time lapse movies there is now a movie showing the first 6 months in under 6 minutes.

Maths Dept Visit:- The Maths Department visited the site on 3/2/2012 to view the latest progress.

Future works for February

GSHP:- The pipes that were sunk at the start of the project continue to be cropped and joined to header connection pipes that will terminate in access ducts in the plant rooms. The works are approximately three quarters of the way through and are presently working on the central area.

Drainage & Basement Slab:- The fourth slab pour on the north was poured on 3/2/2012 using concrete pumps. The concrete pump is a separate vehicle with a telescopic flexible pipe to deliver the concrete to the desired position and is fed with premixed concrete lorries. The second large slab pour (1B) in the south was poured on the 13/2/2012. It is targeted to have all the south basement complete by the beginning of March.

Steel Beams & Columns:- Holding down bolts are fixed accurately to the formwork / reinforcement in order that steel I beams and columns can be bolted to the structure after the slab is poured.

Plant Room & Services:- The service trenches to the centre have largely been excavated now that the bulk dig removal has finished. The lower level plantroom in the south continues to have steel reinforcement fixed in readiness for a concrete pour.

Mezzanine Floor:- The precast columns and walls from basement to mezzanine are virtually complete allowing the temporary support formwork to be installed and the steel reinforcement to be fixed. The 1st mezzanine concrete pour is expected to be on 14/2/2012.

Recent Site Photos

We are happy to announce that we are now providing public iCal feeds for seminars which can be imported into many personal calendars. This includes your Zimbra calendar, as offered by the department, Google Calendars and many others. To import a calendar you need an iCal/ICS link which now can be found as an icon () next to the seminar series title on any seminar listing that you see online.

If you have any questions or comments please email @email .

There are currently some ongoing performance issues with the mailserver, which are being investigated. You are most likely to experience those via lagging responsiveness of your mail client or the Zimbra web interface. An update will be posted here, once the issues have been resolved.

Various changes and adjustments to the mail system have been taking place over the recent weeks to improve performance and eliminate the issues. The final changes are expected to all be in place by Easter.

General

Position:- The project is on programme. Some plant breakdowns have hindered progress causing mid pour problems, however, following repair and maintenance it is expected this will now improve.

Balustrade:- A mock up of the timber balustrade has been produced and has been viewed.

Precast Columns: Precast columns have started to be delivered to site and have been erected in readiness for the mezzanine floor works.

Future works for January

The Big Dig:- The excavation is now largely done with the last remaining corner being used as an access and area for removal of lower plant room spoil.

GSHP:- The pipes that were sunk at the start of the project continue to be cropped and joined to header connection pipes that will terminate in access ducts in the plant rooms. The works are approximately two thirds of the way through and are presently working on the south working towards the central area. This will continue into February.

Drainage & Slab:- The third slab pour on the north was poured on 24/1/2012 using concrete pumps. The concrete pump is a separate vehicle with a telescopic flexible pipe to deliver the concrete to the desired position and is fed with premixed concrete lorries. It is targeted to have all the north slab complete by the end of January. The first slab pour in the south was poured on the 19/1/2012. It is targeted to have all the south basement complete by the beginning of March.

Plant Room & Services:- The lower plant rooms have been excavated and blinded (concrete cover over the substrata) in the south.

Tower Cranes:- Tower Cranes are now erected for use on the project, although like the concrete pumps, have been experiencing some breakdowns recently.

Recent Site Photos

Congratulations to Andrew Dancer, Anne Henke and Jan Kristensen, who have been awarded the title of Professor in the University's recent Recognition of Distinction exercise.

General

Position:- The project is approximately 1 week ahead of programme. The aim is to maintain the lead in the north of the site and to increase the good progress already made in the south.

Public viewing:- Viewing panels will be introduced adjacent to Gate 5 in the next few weeks for the public to better review progress

Balustrade: A mock up of the timber balustrade has been produced and will be brought to site in the next few days.

Precast Columns: An inspection of the precast columns was carried out on 12/1/2012 with the first delivery to site expected on Monday 16/1/2012.

The Big Dig:- The excavation is now predominantly done at which point over 47,000m3 of soil will have been removed. The gravel will be recycled and the clay used locally as fill material.

Maths Dept Visit:- The Maths Department visited the site on 6/1/2012. to view the latest progress.

Future works for January

The Big Dig:- The last remaining corner of excavation is to be completed in the next week. The removal of soil will change from loading the lorries at the base of the ramps to loading from ground level as the excavation diminishes.

GSHP:- The pipes that were sunk at the start of the project will now be cropped and joined to header connection pipes that will terminate in access ducts in the plant rooms. The works are over half way through and are presently working on the central area adjacent to the north. This will continue to the start of February.

Drainage & Slab:- The second pour on the north was done on 12/1/2012 using a concrete pump. The concrete pump is a separate vehicle with a telescopic flexible pipe to deliver the concrete to the desired position and is fed with premixed concrete lorries. It is targeted to have all the north slab complete by the end of January. The south is being prepared with steel reinforcement ongoing next week in readiness for the first pour on the south.

Plant Room & Services:- The lower plant room and service trenches are being excavated in the south.

Tower Cranes:- The two rower cranes are now erected for use on the project.

Recent Site Photos

Mike Giles has received the INFORMS Simulation Society 2011 Best
Simulation Publication Award for his 2008 Operations Research paper on
Multilevel Monte Carlo Path Simulation. (further details)

Vicky Henderson, Senior Research Fellow at the Oxford-Man Institute will
give a plenary lecture at the SIAM Conference on Financial Mathematics and
Engineering, 9-11 July 2012. http://www.siam.org/meetings/fm12/