Latest Photos of the Kitchen, Bridge, Courtyard & Roof

The courtyard, resident kitchen, bridge and games room, lounge and central stairway should all be completed by the 24th. Here are the latest shots.

 

 

Quite a view!

A tribute to St Patrick's Day, our proud Irish bridge builders!

The courtyard takes shape - timber and tiles

Central stairway down to the dining room

Roof with the louvres installed

Steady Progress on the Roof & Courtyard

I haven't posted for two weeks, but O'Week has kept us all busy. Progress on the building has been good. While visually it has been hard to see the dramatic progress of some weeks, a great deal of work has been done on the courtyard floor, the Games Room and, the Lounge & Kitchen. As well, work on the louvres that protect the sides of the roof from rain has been underway. The engineering residents have had a field day observing the action form the balconies. All the while life in the common rooms and dining room has returned to 'normal' (if we ignore the noise and zones that residents can't access). However, completion of all spaces is expected within two to three weeks. Key achievements in the last two weeks are:

The courtyard slab floor has now been poured
Tiling is set to commence
The games room is taking shape with most of the glass walls installed
The ground floor apartments for visiting scholars and guests have been completed
The shared kitchen is almost ready for use

The photos below give some sense of progress.

Games Room Taking Shape

Completing the Courtyard Floor

New College Viewed from the top of the NCV

Normal O'Week Life in the Common Rooms

New Bedrooms and other great spaces

The key aims of the refurbishment are to provide new bedrooms, bigger common rooms for each double group, better shared facilities and a halt to leaks in the building. I know, it sounds just like a simple political campaign really - We want new rooms, better facilities and we plan to stop the leaks!

Below are two images of the model room that was built last year to test the construction method and to allow residents to comment on the design. Current residents will spot some things that don't add up about this image (e.g. "Where's Bec?!"). See if you can spot any objects that point to the decorators of the room after Bec had left. The photos give some sense of just how much the rooms will be improved. Of course, Collegians will have their own way to arrange furniture, but the room will work well in a number of configurations (and we loved your version Bec but you left too soon for the photos).

As well, the courtyard will be bigger without the skylights and will have two great new facilities, a new games room and a new lounge (see below).

Image of new lounge (left) & new games room (right) plus stair entry between

There will also be a new connection between the dining room and the courtyard. The stairs will rise from just near the current location for the toasters and will come out in between the new lounge and the games room in the courtyard on the eastern side. The exit point is obscured in the image above. This won't compromise the dining room but will mean we'll need to flip seating around to the northern end for formal dinners (only). The image below is the design for the stairs, which will add better connectivity with the enhanced courtyard and allow more light into the dining room.

Work on the stairway started this week and most other aspects of the refurbishment are going well. The roof framework won't commence until next week, but this is as planned.  I will have new photos from the site in the next post.