As we hope many of you will know, BLSA is returning to the Garrod building with many exciting new student spaces that we cannot wait to show you. But perhaps fewer of you know how this came about and what’s specifically happening so we hope this will help.

For several years now, past BLSA presidents have been aware that the location of the BLS building against the abandoned old Dental Hospital has meant that one day it would likely be knocked down. Confirmation of this finally occurred in the summer of 2021 as the university’s purchase of the land covering both BLSA and the old dental hospital was finalised. It’s worth saying that we are excited to see what the university does with this space as the university’s addition to the Barts Life Sciences cluster will bring a great new space for students and staff (in many years to come).

Once this purchase was finalised, the university, medical school leadership and BLSA began private discussions about the BLSA building and its students’ spaces future. Several options were looked at, all with logistical issues at how far we could spread out money to make great spaces, how big those spaces would be, how close to Whitechapel campus they would be, and the potential for the longevity of the spaces.

This left only one option on the list, and it happened to be right on our doorstep

and going full circle back to where the BLSA (then the London Hospital’s clubs union) had been before:

The Garrod Building!

The Garrod gives great value for money allowing for big interesting new spaces, with an amazing history, at the heart of our Whitechapel campus and builds a student hub with recreational spaces, teaching spaces and student support all working closely together.

To highlight a few of these amazing spaces:

The Old Library

The Old Library, currently it’s used for some evening events hosted by student groups and externals, with some use in presentations for university work or art exhibitions.

The new Old Library is designed to continue to let it do this as a flexible heightened performance space with a small stage and seating configurable into two directions. All of the furniture in the middle of the room is moveable to allow for anything possible to be done here, we can’t wait to see what our student groups do! Lastly this space during the days when it is not used for events now won’t lie empty and has a variety of furniture to make it a large student and staff hub to work and socialise in.

The Griff Inn

The new Griff Inn takes up a third of the ground floor with a brighter fresher café bar space. There are sections throughout the design allowing for cosy couches watching films & sport and keeping some of our favourite iconic booth seating. Hopes are that this space will be open for longer with more flexible food options – which are still being consulted for so keep an eye out. This space is also designed to be as inclusive as we can to allow for bar shutters with a design to separate the bar from the seating, as well as gender neutral toilets.

Recovery Room

Currently this space is another super flexible one as an empty room allowing for get active sports sessions, society events and Friday prayer. In the new building this space has always been seen as very important to replace even better and bigger. The new recovery room (with a new name pending) will be fitted out with a small kitchenette hoped to help with the cost-of-living crisis to allow more students to safely reheat their own food with microwaves and kettles. This space will also allow for a continuing dedication to Friday prayer space.

There are many other spaces to get excited for including a fitness suite, showers, prayer rooms and BLSA offices.

Not everything is always roses, we admit that!

This space will open the current aims is in September 2023, which means some construction will happen in the spring and summer this year and they’ll work to create as few disruptions as possible. It may be likely the new building isn’t entirely finished for BLSA’s Freshers’ events but at least we can give the BLSA building one final big send off!

The building was never going to be perfect, there have been struggles in lobbying for one to one or improved solutions to societies store rooms and the multi faith spaces. We hope that by using the building in all the spaces it offers will allow us to spend the next year ironing out these issues and trying to invest in fixes for the future.

To find out more about the Garrod plans, including lots more pictures then check out:

www.bartslondon.com/new-blsa

IMAGES FROM BLSA AND KENDALL KINGSCOTT WITH PERMISSION, ILLUSTRATION BY LUCY EDGAR