It is hard to predict.  Our old MRC-1000 UV confocal was on the 7th  
floor of a building that had cable suspended floors.  An 8 inch thick  
Newport table top on solid steel legs provided very stable images.   
But, we moved it to the ground floor of an adjacent building and the  
same table allowed us to detect doors  and drawers opening and closing  
in adjacent rooms, plus footsteps in the hallway.  Air legs resolved  
the floor resonance and the fact the high pressure hot water pipes for  
building heat were bolted to the ceiling of the mechanical space in  
the basement, right under the confocal.   At least building sway is  
not an issue.

At one point, there were plans to put a light rail tunnel under our  
building.   The seismic engineers predicted that labs in our basement,  
where the floor is a concrete slab on the ground, would have serious  
vibration issues at least during construction.

right now, we are surrounded by construction of a new building .  Lab  
supplies are jiggling on the shelves because of compactors mounted on  
excavators packing fill dirt and track mounted jack hammers  doing  
demolition.   The air tables on 2 confocals and 2 widefield systems  
seem to be blocking everything, as checked by z-series and fast  
timelapse on beads.

Positive pressure filtered ventilation would keep dust from coming in  
under the doors.  Ours is allegedly filtered but a white dust keeps  
appearing in one of the imaging suites.

Regards,
Glen

Glen MacDonald
Core for Communication Research
Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Research Center
Box 357923
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-7923  USA
(206) 616-4156
[log in to unmask]

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The box said "Requires WindowsXP or better", so I bought a Macintosh.
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On Oct 25, 2009, at 6:56 PM, Adrian Smith wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> The University with which we are affiliated is currently planning a  
> large new research building which will incorporate an (optical)  
> cellular imaging facility.
>
> The design brief expressed a preference for a ground floor/basement  
> location for the imaging facility but the current plans have the  
> facility located on the 4th floor.
>
> The plan is that the facility will house a mixture of optical  
> microscopes, ie confocal, multiphoton, widefield etc, and (by the  
> time the facility is built), super-resolution.
>
> (At this stage there is also plenty of room for future expansion/new  
> technologies)
>
> I'm interested to hear experiences/feedback from people about just  
> how important it is to have such a facility on the ground floor/ 
> basement - ie just how much is that a consideration in a new,  
> purpose-built building? I know of many places (here included) where  
> advanced microscopes are NOT on the ground floor but I'm keen to  
> hear if there are locations where that has been a failure or there  
> have been unexpected complications etc.
>
> All feedback gratefully received.
>
> Regards,
>
> Adrian Smith
> Centenary Institute, Australia