Work has started on a new development of “dream” student housing in the Aqueduct area, at the heart of Durham.
Construction is expected to be completed in mid-December, months earlier than previously anticipated, following the recruitment of teaching staff from Durham University.
A spokesperson for the developers said, “The strike has come at an opportune time for us, as many hard-working Durham University staff will have nothing to do but lend their skills to provide affordable housing for their beloved, pitiable students. We are confident they will relish the challenge and thoroughly look forward to working with them.”
The development comes as a response to growing dissatisfaction in the student community regarding overpriced and inadequate housing. One student informed us she “camped outside the letting agency overnight and wasn’t even offered a tent, let alone a house.”
Another claimed his “only option” was to pay the £3 donation each day and room with the Cathedral Cat, Badger.
(Mr Badger refused to comment, but a spokesperson informed us his newly refurbished home will not be up for sale in the foreseeable future.)
The state-of-the-art accommodation has been designed specifically to cater for the most pressing needs of Durham’s 18,000 students; each house will boast en-suite bathrooms, a self-loading dishwasher and a Responsible AdultTM to assist with laundry and other worrisome tasks. Greggs’ sausage rolls are to be delivered daily to the kitchen via a chute attached to the Saddler Street store.
Moreover, a variety of study spaces will be offered to tailor to the needs of students based on their degree; Science students will benefit from built-in desks and stylish stationery storage, while Humanities students will be invited to swap the workspace for an extra sofa and a large screen projecting a live video of the outside world so they can continue to never leave the house.
For ease when moving in, all houses will already come furnished with an array of succulents, a Klute poster and an empty loo roll tube.
“For those with a little more to spend,” adds the company, “some buildings echo the resplendent architecture of Magdalen College, Oxford, to ensure students feel they are where they are meant to be while studying at ‘Doxbridge’”. To much disappointment, planning permission has not yet been granted for an adjacent deer park.
Nonetheless, the company argue that their most enticing and ingenious feature is the revolutionary, and slightly controversial, single bedroom house design.
“We analysed popular student Facebook pages and found the best solution to Durham’s housing problem was to scrap the dreaded housemate problem altogether. Students need no longer complain about unclaimed dirty dishes, toilet seat issues, ‘borrowed’ food or milk, that housemate who goes on about the one time they cleaned the house (but missed the hair in the plughole), breaking wind or the premature playing of Christmas music.
“In our idyllic, forward-thinking community of homes, students from all backgrounds – whether they wear puffer jackets or three-quarter zip jumpers, are upper or middle class, or are studying Engineering or something useless – can live in harmony by residing separately, immune to the horrors of hellish housemates.”
The rental properties are expected to go up for let in late December when nobody is around to see them, yet the company is confident they will disappear off the market by the start of term in January.
Feature image by Scaffold Pole. Available on Flickr under Creative Commons 2.0 license.