In February, the foundation work for all accessible areas of the European Spallation Source (ESS) facility in Lund (SE) was declared complete. More than 6,000 pilings of varied composition, diameter and depth have been hammered into the bedrock of southern Sweden, creating a foundation designed to protect the linear accelerator, target station, neutron beamlines, and the array of more than two dozen sensitive instruments from all conceivable seismic and man-made interruptions.