Common Rooms 2.0

Kruppies work together to redo common areas.

When my family visited me on campus this weekend, they commented on how beautiful our common rooms were. If they were to visit me again next weekend, I wonder what sort of superlatives they would have to use to describe the common rooms now. On Sunday night a crowd of about thirty volunteers gathered to bring the common rooms to a completely new level.

Students, Resident Associates, the College Masters with family and the College Office Manager worked together to transform the living rooms of all Kruppies into an amazing area where students can play, study and chill. In just five hours, they managed to paint several walls, put up nice new posters and assemble a range of new furniture (an impressing achievement, given that all furniture was ordered from a famous Swedish supplier that is infamous for it's creative instruction sheets), a new kicker table and an airhockey table (which is even more impressive, because the instructions for these were by far more mysterious).

To be honest, the efficiency and enthusiasm displayed by the volunteers was partly due to bribery, namely the fact that each finished piece of furniture was rewarded with a free beer for all those working on it. More importantly however, it was an amazing display of the Krupp community displaying its spirit, which is unmatched on campus. And while beer is a great reward, the biggest reward is the new look of the common rooms:

The bigger common room is now entirely dedicated to games and fun. It now boasts two kicker tables, an airhockey table, a pool table and a table tennis table. The existing furniture has been completely reshuffled, making the room appear a lot bigger. The lower half of some walls were painted bright red, which gives the room a more inviting and homey feel. New red and black leather sofas invite people to chill in between games and offer a space to watch friends competing.

The small common room now features an area designed for meetings and a lounge area. In the front part of the room, the existing armchairs and tables were arranged in an O-shape to allow meetings with groups of up to 14 people. Two big bookshelves, which will hold decorative items, provide an unobtrusive separation from the back part of the room. That more loungy part offers eight brand new arm chairs in a swing design, which means you can gently rock them, and accompanying footstools. Two bookshelves house Krupp's collection of books donated by students and friends of the college. All walls were painted in warm colours and new red rugs give the area the atmosphere of a living room.

The redo means that the stunning architecture of our common rooms – large window fronts overlooking the sports field, wooden floors and minimalist design – is now accompanied by a matching interior. They have turned into an area that feels alive, and already the Kruppies are making sure it will actually be alive by using it a lot more than our old common rooms.

The common room redecoration is just one of many projects completed in Krupp College this academic year: As part of a campaign dubbed "Krupp 2.0", the Krupp team and many volunteers established a party zone in the basement, transformed the TV room into a state-of-the-art media room with a wide screen projector, and created this website. With all the innovation going on, Krupp is proving that the oldest college on campus is also the place to be. We are proud to have the most comfortable common areas and the most homey media room, that our party zone proved so popular that other colleges quickly followed suit and built their own party rooms (alas, we are still the only ones with a combination of two rooms, one for dancing and one for chilling, both with amazing artwork) and that we have the only truly dynamic and user driven website.

To make sure, Krupp College continues to set standards, we are not stopping here: next on our list of projects is a small rework of the quiet study area and the complete renovation of one of our common niches. A new professional table tennis table will shortly give students the chance to enjoy this sport even more, and hopefully we will also be able to have our pool table refurbished. A new sound system has just arrived to help us with Krupp events, and one of our niches will be equipped with a whiteboard to facilitate group study. Of course, we also have smaller side projects, such as decorating the servery, which as of two hours ago boasts brand new photos from recent Krupp events.