| While we built the Barn, we shattered the stereotypes. The best concrete mixer was a cellist from the Music College, Heather Stanley. The hot and cold water tanks were skilfully boxed in by Chris Lee, a Chinese student from Hong Kong who had never handled tools before in his life. The chemical engineers who could model a sewage system for an entire city on their computers put so many bends into our waste pipes that they couldn't be rodded clear when they blocked. Take 'em out and do it again, boys! One of the hardest things was to get scientists and engineers to put things in at an angle, or a bit crooked. Anything absolutely straight at Micklepage looks odd, and out of place, but it was hard for the young men and women to forget the spirit level and put bits in that just "looked right". A lot of the wood used in the Barn conversion was recycled from Imperial College building sites, no, we weren't Green before our time, just very short of money. There were odd hair-raising moments: like the time we took the old cladding off the barn and discovered that the main support posts had rotted away showing daylight between them and the ground: or the several times we got down on Friday night to find the kitchen floor under two feet of water.
One person who always knew what he was doing was Civil Engineering lecturer, Alaisdair Scott-Moncrief. Among his many contributions was the addition of proper foundations to the Barn, a bit tricky when the building is already up. Holding the roof up on props, and putting foundations in two meters at a time took quite a while, but we got all the way round in the end.
|
|
It took ten years, using the labour of more than three generations of student workers, to get the Barn more or less finished. The official opening and first lettings happened somewhere along the way. The Barn to me is a three-dimensional diary of a struggle with an impossible task, made possibly only by the unquenchable cheerfulness of the young men and women who carried it through.
The Barn is only incidentally made of brick and concrete, plaster and wood. Its main ingredient is the willingness of a stream of young people to have a go at anything they were asked to do.
If you stay in the Barn, we ask you to forgive its imperfections, to remember that it is the pride and joy of its builders, and to share a bit of the enthusiasm of those who brought it into being.
|
