ITER moves to new Headquarters building

SAINT-PAUL-LEZ-DURANCE, France. On Monday 8 October about half the ITER team at Cadarache will begin moving into the recently completed Headquarters Building. A part of the French and European commitments to ITER, the five-storey, 183 metre-long building offers more than 20,000 square meters of work space. 

For almost seven years, since the inauguration of the Cadarache Joint Work Site in December 2005, the ITER Organization staff and contractors have worked out of offices located in prefabricated constructions, both on the ITER site and within the CEA-Cadarache enclosure. 

In 2007, an architectural competition was held to design a permanent Headquarters Building and it was won by the practice of Architect Rudy Ricciotti of Marseille and Laurent Bonhomme of Vinon-sur-Verdon. 

Construction of the Headquarters Building, which is part of the French and European commitments to ITER, started in September 2010. On 5 October 2012, Agence ITER France, under delegation from the European Domestic Agency Fusion for Energy, for the European part of the commitment, handed the building over to the ITER Organization. 

A five-storey, 183 metre-long structure offering more than 20,000 square metres of work space (242 offices), the new ITER Headquarters stands on the highest ridge of a wooded six-hectare plot of land below the ITER platform. 

The building includes a 500-seat amphitheatre, a canteen capable or serving some 1,000 meals a day, and a cafeteria. On the fifth floor a conference room will host the meetings of the ITER Council. "We wanted to have as small a footprint as possible on the land in order to protect the vegetation,” explained the architects. “We also wanted the building to be a sort of 'visual pedestal' for the Tokamak Complex that will rise in the background." 

Moving into the new building will begin on Monday 8 October. By the end of November, some 500 ITER staff and contractors will have settled into their new environment. 

With about half the ITER team at Cadarache moving into the Headquarters Building and the other half settling into the twin buildings B22 (the present Headquarters) and B23, the entire staff will finally be based on the ITER site. 

An official inauguration of the Headquarters Building is scheduled in the coming months. 

BACKGROUND TO THE PRESS RELEASE 

ITER—designed to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion power—will be the world's largest experimental fusion facility. Fusion is the process which powers the sun and the stars: when light atomic nuclei fuse together to form heavier ones, a large amount of energy is released. Fusion research is aimed at developing a safe, abundant and environmentally responsible energy source.   

ITER is also a first-of-a-kind global collaboration. Europe will contribute almost half of the costs of its  construction, while the other six Members to this joint international venture (China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation and the USA), will contribute equally to the rest. The ITER project is under construction in Cadarache, in the south of France. 

Photos of the ITER Headquarters building can be downloaded at: http://www.iter.org/album/newsline/239HQ

More information on the ITER project can be found at: http://www.iter.org/

Contact

Michel Claessens

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