Summer may be a quiet time for the department, but we have been busy behind the scenes, embarking on several meaningful upgrades to the interior spaces of our Vancouver site.
These upgrades began with a survey which was circulated to students, staff, and faculty, to seek ideas for areas that would benefit from improvement. Three small but significant projects were identified and submitted as project requests. Over the summer, we have used this funding to give our facilities a notable refresh.
Lighting upgrades in Labs 1+2, Lab 3 and Lab 4
One of our changes was to upgrade the lighting across all of our labs to increase brightness, and to offer a variety of lighting levels for different classes and tasks.
The lighting in Labs 1+2, Lab 3 and Lab 4 have all been upgraded to brighter, LED lights, with a dimmer control in each space.
This should reduce any distractions associated with traditional fluorescent lighting and provide a clean, bright light for these important learning spaces.
Before:
After:
Locker unit replacement
The existing lockers, located in the corridor leading to the learning labs and also along the parallel corridor, have been in situ for several decades. They were largely still functional, but some were in worse condition than others.
To accommodate the growing cohort based at our Vancouver site, we increased the number of lockers by having half-sized units, and we replaced the slightly dated colour scheme to enliven them.
The new units are due to be installed over a weekend in October. Stay tuned for the ‘after’ photograph below.
Before:
After:
Corridor repaint
The Department shares the UBC Hospital third floor space with several other units and research teams. As such, over the years, a variety of wall colours have been featured on different parts of the corridors. For the sake of coherency, and to brighten and refresh the space, we requested a full repainting of the corridors from the faculty offices, to the admin office, to the labs, and outside the long wall next to the seminar spaces.
The corridor painting took place in July, with a neutral but warm white throughout. New notice boards will be installed in the coming weeks.
Before:
After:
*These photographs do not capture the new brightness in the corridors and labs – be sure to visit when you can!
These upgrades were completed with thanks to the faculty, staff, students and co-located research teams for their patience and flexibility; the coordination and funding from the Faculty of Medicine Facilities team; and the Vancouver Coastal Health project management team.