By David Lao
Pitman Hall’s student lounges were painted and renovated over the summer, giving students access to brand new furniture and televisions on each floor.
Director of housing and residence life Ian Crookshank said that the renovations changed the old lounges into bright and happy spaces that feel more like “home.”
“You walk off the elevator and you see this beautiful, really modern paint,” he said. “And furniture with a lot of colour as well.”
The cost of the renovations are estimated to be around $60,000 according to an email from Crookshank.
Pitman Hall is Ryerson’s largest residence building and second-oldest, with 565 rooms housing more than 550 students.
Aidan Taylor, a Ryerson urban planning student, says he really likes the new lounges.
“They’re very welcoming, lots of chairs,” he said. “You can actually move them around so you can open it up more or take away space.”
Konner Mitchener, a Ryerson architectural science student, says that he is happy with them as well.
“I like the couches, they’re pretty handy,” said Mitchener. “I eat in there whenever I get the chance, so I don’t know what they looked like before, but so far, I got no problems.”
When told what the renovation cost, Mitchener said that the amount was quite reasonable. He said, however, that Ryerson could have spent a little more money on the lounges’ climate control.
“A lot of lounges I found were very hot in there. It was very hard to keep the ventilation going properly, so they put up a lot of notices saying, ‘Here’s some tips on keeping it cold,’ because it’s not quite up to it,” said Mitchener.
Brittany Hockley and Justin Diezmo, both Ryerson image arts students, said that the lounges were comfortable and a good place to hang out with friends.
“One thing that might be nice would be a foosball table or some activities,” says Hockley. “It would be nice to have a reason to bring everybody together.”
Crookshank says that there will be more changes to come in the next 12 months, including a Wi-Fi renovation for Pitman Hall as well as a changing of all the door locks in the building. The new door locks will all be Wi-Fi enabled so that the main office of the building can control who has access into a room.
According to Crookshank, if anybody was to lose their key, they could just shut off access to the room and issue them a new key instead of having to manually override the lock.
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