Originally published in the December 2021 issue of the CTA Newsletter. Lee este artículo en español en nuestra CTA Newsletter.

In this issue, we asked the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) Infrastructure Design Coordinator, David Bristow, about the work he is doing to prepare the upcoming CTAO’s facilities and infrastructure.

Tell us about yourself and how you came into your present role.

I am originally from the United Kingdom, where I trained as an Architect for seven years. My professional career primarily covers industrial building design and construction, with experience also in the design of education, large scale mixed retail development projects, housing, defence, transport and storage buildings. In 2016, I joined the CTAO Project Office in Heidelberg (Germany) to design and implement the Civil Infrastructure for the Observatory.

What does an Infrastructure Coordinator and why is it important for the future of CTAO?

The role of the Infrastructure Design Coordinator is to ensure the design of the Civil Infrastructure for the observatory is coordinated to meet the needs of the end users’ requirements. This includes coordinating the design for the building, roads, telescope foundations and network infrastructure.

For large-scale projects like CTAO, it is important to ensure that the design of the Civil infrastructure is coordinated and functions to meet the needs of the Observatory for the next 30 years.

What are you working on now?

We are currently working on the concept design and planning for the Civil Infrastructure of the CTAO-South Array Site. The first concept design proposals for the Technical and Operations Buildings have been presented to the CTAO Project Office for discussion and the second iteration of the designs will be presented before the end of the year for further discussions. In addition, the first designs of the ‘site support’ are being planned and discussed, which includes all the major Civil infrastructure which will be required to allow the Observatory to function on a ‘day to day’ basis. This includes resolving many complex planning issues related to how the users will live and work at the sites.

In early 2022, we start the detailed design of the CTA-South Array Site Civil infrastructure. The work is detailed and requires the coordination of our site characterisation studies undertaken several years ago to design the most efficient infrastructure. The design will include the coordination of the road networks, underground services network and foundations.