New Graduate Accommodation
Two brand new graduate residences were opened at the end of September 2008 for Robinson College graduate students. This was after some three years of planning and thirteen months of building work on the Sellenger site in Sylvester Road. The buildings have been designed to a very high standard to provide good-sized en-suite rooms, with well-equipped kitchens and sitting rooms. Accessibility has been properly addressed, with four large rooms available with lifts to all floors in each building. Each of the forty-eight residential rooms has fitted furniture of good quality, with room for a refrigerator, and the generous en-suite bathroom has a large shower. Windows are triple-glazed to ensure warmth whilst minimising heating costs. The buildings are equipped with new technology, including state-of-the-art IT network installed in each room and wireless network access which is provided for communal areas. Building and room access is via an electronic card. Telephones, closed-circuit TV, fire alarms, the Building Management System and car park entry are all managed via the College's network. Outside the buildings, the area has been sympathetically landscaped; concern for bio-diversity directed much of its design, which includes some interesting environmental initiatives.
The Architects were IID of Reading and the contractors were led by ISG Jacksons of Ipswich. All in all, they did excellent work and were virtually on time. Though the building design is not in any way extraordinary, it meets the design brief of providing the desired number of sizeable and comfortable rooms. This outcome represents even more of an achievement when one takes into account the numerous constraints imposed by the City Council Planning Department. The landscaping was undertaken by Robert Myers Associates, who won a gold medal at Chelsea in 2008 for their garden for the Cadogan Estates, and is an important element of the whole project.
The project has involved many sections of the College. The Facilities Manager, Bill McKim, has spent many hours with the architects ensuring that the buildings are going to be readily maintainable. The Senior Gardener, Guy Fuller, has worked with Robert Myers Associates on various aspects of the gardens; for example, the planners required the College to relocate a relatively large and mature liquid amber tree as part of the garden design. The IT Department had to arrange to install a new fibre-optic route from the College's main site to the two new buildings which was installed along the new route by the Gardens, Maintenance and IT Departments working together.
The addition of these forty-eight rooms will ensure that the College can guarantee to provide all graduate students with College accommodation for the full three years of a PhD, should they want it. This is an essential step in our strategy for enhancing the facilities we can offer graduate students and forms part of a larger project to provide better support for all of them - not least in the provision of scholarships.
During the construction phase the graduate housing in Sellenger could not be used, so we have taken the opportunity to refurbish Sellenger itself, providing a new kitchen and bathrooms, and restoring the hardwood floors in two of the large downstairs student rooms. The whole complex provides us with the graduate centre which we have long desired, and in an interesting, even beautiful, setting.
The College has been supported by a number of generous donors and we would like to thank them for their support.
