We’re now just four short weeks away from the beginning of Autumn term, and of the opening of our new Boilerhouse Café!
New academic offices in the International Building are open
First things first though – we’re excited to report that work in the International Building is largely complete, and that this week staff from the Classics department are moving in to their new offices! The offices make extensive use of glass throughout to let light gently permeate the area, and benefit from all-new equipment and furnishings. It’s a thoroughly modern and intelligent set of offices, and we’re looking forward to Classics beginning to take advantage of the space over the coming weeks and months.
We’re not completely finished with the International Building, and you might notice some work being done in particular on the outside of the building where we’re finishing the wooden cedar cladding by the main entrance. We’ll be putting the final touches on the International Building works over the next week or so.
Creating the new Boilerhouse pavilion
If you’ve walked past the Boilerhouse recently you’ll no doubt have noticed the timber frame of the new pavilion taking shape. The pavilion occupies the eastern third of the courtyard, and you can already see its sweeping lines and natural timber apperance. Over the next few weeks ARJ will work on the remaining external sections of the pavilion, including the windows and the floor, in order to seal the building from the elements. After that, work will start in earnest on the interior of the building.
The works on the walls and ceiling in the north wing is largely finished, and ARJ will shortly begin work on the interior floors, details and furnishings.
A view from where the main serving counter will be, looking towards the main entrance to the café (centre) and the doorway into the new pavilion (centre left).
An overview of the completed café, showing the refurbished north wing and the new pavilion. The layout of the café will be a lot like this but some of the details aren’t final yet (such as the exact layout of the tables, for example).
ARJ Construction is also making good progress on transforming the Boilerhouse courtyard. Hundreds of the cobblestones have been removed, cleaned, and placed back into position. It’s painstaking work, as each stone has to be set into place in a sandy base by hand, before later being set with a resin layer that’s poured in between all the gaps (we use resin instead of concrete because it won’t crack when exposed to subtle shifts in the courtyard surface).
One of the team setting cobblestones by hand in the courtyard.
The Campus Services team is hard at work on the food offer in the new café, which will include both hot and cold food and drinks and more options than in Café Jules. Watch out for more information on the new café offer this September!
Getting ready for Welcome Week
The Boilerhouse Café is on track to be open for the beginning of Welcome Week on 17 September 2016. One thing in particular has taken longer than we thought it would, though: the drains underneath the courtyard.
We mentioned in a previous update that we’d done extensive work fixing these drains, which were in a much worse condition than we’d thought. These repairs were absolutely essential and will mean that the Boilerhouse is at much less risk of flooding in the future, but it’s also meant that we weren’t able to start work on the pavilion quite as early as we’d planned to.
It’s really important to us that students will have this new social and study space on campus open when you start their time with us, so we’ve worked very hard to make sure that the café will be open in time for Welcome Week. The overall project, including the pavilion, won’t be ready for a few weeks after that however, and we now expect everything to be finished in the second week of October.
Any questions? Get in touch
We hope you’ve enjoyed this peek into the progress of the Boilerhouse Project. If you have any questions about the project, or any of our other estate plan works, please don’t hesitate to email us.
Looking through the main entrance to the new café at the new pavilion