Though the $105-million Terrence Donelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research (CCBR) opened to great fanfare last Thursday, some lab users worry whether the move into the building came too early, since some scientists have been experiencing persistent problems that have slowed work.

“To get distilled water, we must go to [the Medical Sciences Building],” said Lilia Baev, a lab technician.

Since her fifth-floor lab moved from the Best Institute, in late September, researchers had have had to bring jugs of distilled water over on carts from the Medical Sciences Building. The CCBR’s supply of distilled water is not yet certified.

Frequent breakdowns have beset their environmental and cold rooms, both of which maintain the finely tuned conditions scientists need for their work. “The cold room, which is supposed to be at four degrees was 17°C last week, so we couldn’t do any experiments.”

As a result, Baev said, “the lab does not function [at] 100 per cent.” And she has an explanation for that. “We were rushed to move in.”

The CCBR is the long and narrow glass tower on College St., west of University Ave. The building is billed on the idea of collaborative work-the mixing and matching of scientists from different departments in a research lab setting.

Its layout is meant to help researchers mix it up: indoor gardens are scattered around the building; the spacious lab floors-with seemingly endless rows of lab benches and large windows-have central kitchenettes on each level; convenient sets of stairs connect adjacent floors.

On Friday afternoon, Neela Parthasarathy, a graduate student, wrestled with one of the autoclaves-mammoth pressure cookers that clean and disinfect scientific glassware. Her glassware was trapped inside, under vacuum.

“This is the second time this week this has happened-and it’s getting tedious.” For Parthasarathy, this has meant a lot of wasted lab time. “All because of moving into a half-finished building,” she said. “We should have moved in after Christmas.”

Dr. Brenda Andrews, the CCBR director, said there had indeed been some problems. “There’s some issues with the steam and the water because they’re finishing some of the delivery systems.” But she insisted these are problems typically encountered in new buildings.

“With any construction project there’s always issues one discovers when one moves in,” Andrews said, speaking on the phone from California. “I expect most of this stuff will be resolved in the next month or so.”

Andrews did grant, however, that these problems have pushed back the move-in schedule for scientists somewhat.

“We’re assessing that now to make sure that we have all the stuff that we need to have in place for them,” she said. The “principal investigators” were meant to have moved in by the end of December. “I think it would probably be about four weeks delayed.”

While at the CCBR, your correspondent encountered a group of architecture students on an impromptu visit of the building. They were in town for a weekend architecture conference at Ryerson University. Eric Zaddock, the president of the American Institute of Architecture Students, was taken with the bamboo garden by the main entrance.

“It’s intriguing,” he said. “It softens that hard concrete of this building with the softness and detail of the [Rosebrugh Building] next door. It’s the buffer zone, it makes that transition between the two.”

The garden and walls of coloured tiles also appealed to Heribert Geis, a jetlagged German architecture professor from the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt am Main. Geis was here to see the work of Gunter Behnisch, one of the CCBR’s architects. Notable buildings Behnisch designed include the Olympic Games Tent, built for the 1972 Munich Olympics, and the former German parliament building, in Bonn.

But he had not yet made up his mind about the CCBR. “Have you talked with the users?” he asked.

Pieces of plywood blocking the end of a hallway and one of the stairways did catch his eye, though. “I am wondering about such things,” said Gies, pointing toward them. “What happened, is it not finished, or is it broken?”

He also seemed surprised one could go no higher than the seventh floor of the building-by elevator, at least. “So it’s not really finished,” he remarked.