A trimmer university (From The Oxford Times)

A trimmer university

10:19am Thursday 2nd July 2009 in

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Sir – What are we to think about the new apparently leaner version of the Brookes’ Student Centre? Forget about plan A, let’s look at plan B, Brookes. Certainly its bulk has undergone the surgery of being slightly submerged, lopped off at the top and tinkered at the edges.

But is the edifice any less bulky or has it simply been cleverly corseted? We are not conned by the new packaging. All the flab, vastness, traffic nuisance and noise potential remain.

As does the night club, which has been cleverly subsumed into the library and ‘social facilities’! A centre that swings and squeals into the wee hours remains a night club.

And no artificial, cosmetic fiddling can conceal the actual height and volume of a building which the local community cannot sustain.

I think it’s time Brookes was less greedy and went on a genuinely healthy diet. They need to take a holistic approach to a site which is already too congested, too loud and too claustrophobic and create a trim version of the university that is fit for purpose.

Margaret Conway Oxford