What's in a building? Or something OTHER than Clearing

Right, so most universities and a host of other organisations will talk about "state of the art facilites". Hands up - we do, here at the University of Bedfordshire. "State of the art" is almost certainly the cliche of all cliches when it comes to describing estates and facilities, but looking round our (and others') campuses these days, there is some justification for feeling proud of our shiny buildings.

I first set foot on the then University of Luton’s campus as a member of staff in February 2002. I couldn’t believe it. I had thought that the terrible, terrible building in which I was being asked to work had been part of the tests during the interview, The hilariously named “Fairview” House – which still looms uncomfortably in the memories of many colleagues on the payroll – looked for all the world like a low cost location should anyone have wanted to remake The Shining or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in Luton. Sick building disease? Oh yes; even the pot plants threw themselves off the windowsills.

The old SU in Luton. It was horrid.

It was one of a number of weird, awful buildings on the estate. Former colleagues and alumni will shudder recalling:

•  the decrepit Student Union, whose most popular method of entry involved ducking down and squeezing through a missing railing;
• a much fabled, long since disappeared and possibly totally fictitious toilet, specially installed for HRM The Queen when she visited the University of Luton;
•  the eye poppingly daft Ambulance Station, which survived a £10s conversion to briefly become the Uni’s Post Room;
• various portacabins, containers, cupboards and other undesirable places, used for a whole host of daft reasons;
• the old Student Centre, whose undercroft was a favoured place for rats to overeat, get themselves stuck, then die.
  

Sub 2; one of the new Beds SU venues in Luton

Since then, the University of Bedfordshire has emerged and come a long way. Those fond of the monstrous 60s and 70s buildings of old might sneer at what they may see as the clinical ‘airport terminal’ campus feel, or the trendy 'Manhattan loft' feel of the School of Art's new facility in an old textiles warehouse in Luton town centre, while muttering about an over-abundance of cafes and thematic décor.

This is how campuses look these days and students – whether viewed as ‘partners’, ‘customers’, ‘consumers’ etc. - make a hefty commitment to higher education and have a quite justified expectation for universities to match.

And so, we have: the new Gateway building in Bedford, PG Centre in Luton, modern Nursing faciltiies in Aylesbury and Luton, an expanding UCMK (Milton Keynes) campus. And that's even before our brand spanking new library which is due to open its state of the art facilities early next year....