Massive changes to report this time around, as the walling installation works begin at NLE, zoning the building into its final room layout.

This comes along side a range of other works that have seen a huge, tangible evolution of the site as we head into the final phase of the envelope installation.

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Weekly overview

What a three weeks we’ve had on-site here at NLE. The walls have really started to take shape, with the first floor data halls now visible, along with some of the main access corridor and customer breakout / build room. We’ve also had the ground floor to first floor riser access holes cut into the mezzanine floor, ready for our future inter-floor service routes.

Our lift installation is now also underway, with the main vertical runners and lifting mechanism now in place. This will be enclosed by the shaft in the coming weeks, and the platform will be installed.

The ground floor of the facility has also had all fire protection for the mezzanine structure installed, which is another great milestone in terms of having that component of the envelope fully finished.

We now have 25 tonnes of insulated wall panelling on-site, ready for installation. This will be followed by nearly 33 tonnes of raised floor, and several tonnes of hung ceiling flown overhead in each hall.

Those with a keen eye will notice that the current door openings cut into the walls would not be correct when factoring in our raised floor. These are currently temporary cut-outs for positioning and site access, and will have their height increased (along with base boards installed) later.

We’re incredibly excited to see the site reach this stage. Of course we still have quite a way to go, with several weeks remaining on the envelope stage alone, however seeing the rooms take shape on-site is a massive milestone.

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What else has been happening?

Our new van is now almost finished, and we’re very excited to show you what she looks like! We’re very impressed with how she’s turned out.

We just have some final finishing touches to make, and we’ll show you how she looks.

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What’s next?

We still have a few weeks of walling and fire protection installation works to completed on-site, while also flying overhead containment grids in each Data Hall to allow for above ceiling cable runs. Beyond this, the envelope installation works will continue, moving onto floors, ceilings and access.

Plenty more progress to report on this time around, as we head towards twenty weeks of work on-site at NLE.

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Weekly overview

Focus this time around has been on preparing the space for the walling contractors to begin their installation works. This has included the removal of some legacy cable containment, the installation of new EcoTerm insulation on all skylights over the eventual first floor data halls, and the construction of our lift foundation.

As always, there have been a wide array of additional works happening alongside the headline tasks, both at NLE, and in the continued growth of operations across the board. We’re in early-stage planning for further expansion in Telehouse, for example – more news on that soon!

We’ve also had extensive work undertaken to reposition the on-site boiler, which included a full re-run of the building’s gas and water supplies. As a result, our office / NOC kitchen is now fully plumbed in, making the site much more pleasant to inhabit!

As always, there has been a huge amount of work happening behind the scenes. We’re now ready for our internal walls to be installed, along with all access doors, which have now been manufactured for us. Our personnel lift will also be installed in September, which required the block base to be fully in place, along with the associated internal walls that will surround the shaft.

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What else has been happening?

Our new CREC units have now gone into manufacture, thanks to our long-standing friends over at EcoCooling. These ECT10800 units are manufactured entirely in Suffolk, at the EcoCooling design and production facility – so 100% UK made.

We’ve been sent some shots of these units as they run through the assembly line, something we’re always very pleased to see!

We’ve visited their production facility a number of times, and the level of innovation on display there really is something to behold. We’re very proud to again be partnering with EcoCooling for NLE, the third private design and build project we’ve had the pleasure of working with them on.

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What’s next?

We now have a final week of closing preparation works before the next phase begins in anger, starting with the internal walls and doors. This week will include a range of tasks across the board, even including some work on our new van, which we’re very excited to show you once complete!

Another two weeks are now in the books at NLE, with plenty of progress to report as we head further into the envelope construction.

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Weekly overview

We’ve made great progress on our new compound perimeter security fencing, with our huge sliding vehicle access gate now in place. This joins the new pedestrian access gate, with the installation of our turnstile coming up next (after being sandblasted and powder coated in our desired shade).

There have also been many bodies on-site as works continue on the envelope, both for development meetings and for some minor adjustments to the mezzanine before the walls begin to go in later this month.

As you can see, we’ve had another great couple of weeks at NLE. The intense heat did delay some of the fencing installation, but progress was not hindered much at all, as we’ve spent lots of time on planning and orchestration of the next phase – that being walling.

The rear compound will also receive the full security enclosure treatment in the coming weeks, along with full razor wire to both sides of the facility, taking us to full enclosure of the site. We’ll also be fitting the motor to the main sliding gate in the near future, which will be tied into our access control system, along with the turnstile.

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What’s next?

Towards the end of this month, our walling contractors will be on-site to begin splitting the facility into its final layout, including all four data halls and associated plant rooms / customer amenities.

We’ll also be continuing with works outside the facility, by completing the full perimeter.

After a real flurry of activity during the main mezzanine installation, the last two weeks have been a little more restrained in terms of visual change, as the majority of our time and effort has been spent orchestrating the next phase of the project.

We’ve spent time otherwise completing additional works ahead of the internal walling and access fit-out, which will be the next major milestone here at the new data centre.

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Weekly overview

Aside from lots of time spent in meetings with our structural engineers, service coordinators, electrical contractors and other critical contributors to the NLE project, we’ve predominantly seen the most visual change at the front of the facility over the past 10 working days.

Our new high-security perimeter fence has started to take shape. This will largely match the specification of the compound perimeter found at NLC; that being a 2.4M palisade design, with overhead razor wire.

The difference here is that we’ve actually been able to retain some of the existing posts, designing custom post extensions to allow for a much taller border, and a faster installation.

We’re also adding a matching pedestrian turnstile, along with a gargantuan 6M sliding access gate for vehicles. This will be a whopping 3M high, to match the full height of the razor wired compound.

The rear of the facility will be following suit, with large 3M pedestrian access and fire escape gates, along with rear security fence extensions and razor wire, to match the much larger front compound.

We’re very pleased with this progress as we continue to push towards the end of month four on-site at NLE.

We’ve been extremely pleased with our approach to the main compound fence runs. While the front side of the compound will require more in the way of new posts and additional hardware, the custom extensions have proved a great success in quickly deploying the main runs using existing posts, which have already been dug in to the subsurface.

The final consultative actions on the walls, doors and custom machine plinths are scheduled for next week, meaning this next phase of the build will be underway shortly. This will split the facility into its various rooms and fire zones for the first time.

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What else has been happening?

We’ve continued with further roll-out of our new core node at CLL this past week. While there’s not much to show visually, as much of this involved logical work on our 100G+ ring, we did want to show our new custom MUXs, which are fully branded, and have new shuttered connectors.

All future MUX additions and/or replacements will be our new branded variants, which we’re excited to be partnering directly with the manufacturer for!

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What’s next?

Aside from the forward-looking continuation of the main envelope, our own team will be pushing ahead with development on later-stage plans for the installation of containment and associated systems.

We’ll also be moving onto the parts of the perimeter fencing that include the turnstile and the large sliding gate, which are certainly more complex additions to the compound.

What a transformation we’ve seen this week at the NLE data centre project. The main mezzanine is now in place, ready to receive walls, doors, raised floors and ceilings, which will form the data halls and all other technical spaces. The true scale of the build has now begun to show itself.

What was once an empty, blank canvas of a building is now well on its way to becoming our newest flagship London data centre.

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Weekly overview

This week, we’ve had two teams on-site installing our new heavy-duty mezzanine system. This system was designed here in the UK by our structural engineering contractor, and manufactured in Sweden.

Quite remarkably, this structure went up in just 3.5 days. That’s the entirety of the steel work, and nearly 20 tons of surface boarding, in a little over half a week.

The visual change on-site over the last five days has been incredible. This is set to continue, as we look ahead to the full envelope installation, which will present us with the final building layout.

What you’re looking at here is a 470 square meter mezzanine floor, designed to support 450 tons, but with a max design loading of around 700 tons.

This will be holding up the two first floor data halls, along with service corridors, build and breakout rooms, and a fully-featured DR suite to match that on-site at NLC.

The underside will house a further two data halls, plus our heavy plant and electrical switchgear rooms.

We couldn’t be happier with the outcome of this tranformative phase of the project, and while we are acutely aware of the work that still lays before us, we’re extremely happy to see such a major milestone reached.

Our time lapse camera has been running throughout this phase of the build, so we’ll be pushing out a quick cut of the process soon.

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What’s next?

Next up, will be the walling and door / access installation, which will fully zone off each area. There may be a week or two of layover ahead of this installation, so there will be plenty more supplementary works ongoing throughout this time.