Trinity will always find itself between a rock and a hard place when it comes to space. But this week’s revelations on exam spaces show that it’s about to get harder. The College’s yet-to-be-published estates strategy will depict Trinity as a champion for student spaces, yet it continues to infringe on its agreement on the Graduates Memorial Building, a key space for students. With the looming possibility that College will not have sufficient space for exams next year, one can predict that further transgressions are yet to come.
Between the government’s new sugar tax, the College’s push for more smoke-free zones and its stated aim to be plastic-free in the future, it’s hard to stomach that Trinity, by way of its pouring rights deal with Coca-Cola, enforces unhealthy products on its campus populous, let alone the Science Gallery Café – which once was able to offer far healthier alternatives. The money from the deal with one of the world’s largest companies is supposedly partly dedicated to healthy Trinity initiatives, and it is this counter-intuitive thinking that we are stuck with for another eight years.
It’s no surprise that staff who work in the Arts Block don’t find it to be the most glamorous building on campus. A fine piece of architecture in its day, it is hard to see where the Arts Block could be improved without simply tearing the whole thing to the ground. But, as with the vast aesthetic uplift resulting from the relatively minor changes to the Arts Block cafe and its surrounding areas, the addition of art and the proposed new community spaces on the third and fourth floors should be welcomed. They may be just what the building needs to improve its arid interior.
