Yaman Kalaji Local Guide
18 Apr 2023
There has been a lot of debate about this accommodation, mainly because it was rushed in 2022/2023 which caused multiple problems in heating, water temperature, laundry, and other minor issues to students for that academic year. Being one of these students, I felt I should describe my experience:
- Heating and water temperature (1/5): the building is designed on sustainability principles, which don’t give you full control over how warm your room would be, not to mention the consistent distributions because it’s still a new building. The accommodation team have been trying to fix them, yet it’s not totally solved but it got better since I moved in.
- The view and the area (5/5): honestly living in a park was a unique experience- you can see the pictures. Also the area is 10 minutes walk from the tube station (Stratford station). A TfL bus usually comes in front of the building so you can take it easily and go where you want if needed. You have a close Westfield under your fingertips, so you can find whatever you want. I can say that One Pool Street was intentionally built in a strategic location.
- Laundry (2/5): it‘s relatively small, only 8 washers/dryers per tower. Some of them break and need time to get fixed.
- Room and flat size (3.5/5): there are 9 en-suits in a flat. This could be a large number but the kitchen is ridiculously big so it makes difference- see the pictures. The room itself is tiny, sometimes I had a difficulty in moving.
- Quality (4/5): kitchen tools were new and state-of-the-art, there is a big TV screen too connected to Wifi. Sometimes things malfunctioned because they are still new and were still being calibrated, but clearly quality was put in mind when this building was constructed.
Note: I noticed that students’ experience differed because they lived on different floors and different towers. Some floors had more issues than others.
Disclaimer: I lived and studied in the same building, so I didn’t have any commuting.
