A look inside UCL's brand-new campus, UCL East

UCL East, a fresh and modern campus of UCL, has recently commenced its operations, welcoming both students and the community.

The UCL has created an initiative to tackle the major issues affecting society and the environment, and they call it their "immediate solution". They offer more than 60 programs to study, lodging accommodations for more than 500 learners, and they even have advanced robotic canines and servers that can serve you coffee.

Back in 2012, an idea was brought forward to change the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park into an imaginative and academic district. It has taken a total of four years to build and has cost an immense £487 million, but it's a significant accomplishment for UCL as it's the most substantial expansion in its history.

Top-notch research and state-of-the-art amenities - which involve these automated servers.

In September 2023, the inaugural section of UCL East was officially launched, unveiling both its structures to students and the general public. The head of UCL, Dr Michael Spence, hailed it as an impressive asset to London, the United Kingdom, and the globe.

The main academic building in the campus, known as Marshgate, was inaugurated this September. It has eight floors filled with advanced laboratories, amenities for students, and areas for socializing. The building also has areas dedicated to academic pursuits as well as community involvement. These zones are designed to be flexible and easily adaptable.

The research facilities that are at the top of the world include a variety of places like an artificial sky dome laboratory with brightness that can change, a chamber that studies human thermal behavior, a global innovation center that focuses on disability, and many other labs, studios, and resources.

The spaces available for students consist of a wide range of facilities such as a library, dining hall, coffee shop, auditoriums, expertly equipped kitchens, and ceramic studios, among others.

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The central lodging spot is One Pool Street, which has more than 500 recently built rooms. Common rooms are available to every UCL pupil and include a place to study that is similar to a student center, a coffee shop, many labs like the Robotics and Autonomous Systems Center, and a newly constructed cinema with 160 seats.

Dr Michael Spence, the Provost of UCL, praised the building of UCL East.

In his statement, he expressed that the creation of our new campus involved a lot of effort and collaboration with local and international partners who also have the same enthusiasm and goals for success. At East Bank, we are investing in young minds and their zeal to promote local innovation that can positively impact lives. Together, we aspire to form a world that includes everyone, promotes equality, and maintains sustainability for future generations.

One Pool Street is a modern and highly advanced student housing facility located along the river.

There were some controversies during the construction of UCL East, even though it boasts world-class facilities and a modern campus.

The main building located on Pool Street has experienced a delay of three months in its construction, as a result, new students are currently being housed in hotels on a temporary basis.

Several students are worried about the ease of living or studying on a campus that takes more than 40 minutes to travel to and involves the use of multiple tube lines away from UCL's central Bloomsbury campus.

A student who goes to UCL-East said, "The facilities are awesome, but I'm not sure if the hassle is worth it. I also have classes on the main campus that are more than 45 minutes away, and a lot of the materials we need are only available at the libraries there. I sympathize with the students who live here and pay for pricey housing that's far from where they study. Doing that commute twice a day, every day, must be tough."

People who do not support the new campus are doubtful about its expensive cost, even though it only serves 4,000 fresh students. When plans for UCL East were announced in 2018, many educators disagreed with its management and opposed it. They believed that it was not wise to invest a large sum of money in a new campus that will only house a small fraction of UCL’s vast student population, which is currently at 53,000. Therefore, according to them, it is a waste of money.

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