New postgraduate ħ opens

A new postgraduate student and staff drinking and social venue on the South Kensington campus is set to open this Friday. In keeping with the Union’s trend of naming its drinking establishments with incredibly nerdy puns, the new space will be called ħ (pronounced h-bar), named after the reduced Planck constant, which is the smallest quantum of angular momentum (with a value of 6.582 x 10-16 eV s). There have been some criticisms of the new name, however according to the Union the name was chosen out of a shortlist of names submitted by staff members and postgraduate students. The ħ will be a multi-function space, with a ‘café’ area and a ‘bar’ area. The bar will be run by the Union, whilst food is provided by College’s Campus Services division. The bar will be staffed by students with previous bar experience, similar to the Old Holland Club and will have several student shift leaders, one of whom will be Stefan Nubert, former Deputy President Finance & Services and current Imperial postgraduate student. The café area is set to serve Leon -style street food — think falafel wraps and couscous — which adds an exciting variation to College’s current food provision, while the bar area will provide pub-style food as well as sharing platters and tapas-style dishes. The lunch provided by the venue will be different from the menu in the Senior Common Room, with the added benefit of being accessible for taught postgraduate students (unlike the SCR). The bar will serve a selection of beverages available at the other Union bars, with the addition of a new craft beer from Greene King called “Noble”. There might also be some promotional deal available later on in the year. The Union stated that they were keen for the space to host postgraduate student events and welcome student input while the way in which the space is used is developed. They are also keen for postgraduate students to consider ħ as a “home for postgraduate students and staff”. In comparison to the postgraduate and staff venue that used to exist in the space (the Holland bar) the ħ provides a significantly large space for drinking and eating, utilising more of the Sherfield building’s basement spaces. Additionally the availability of food during lunch hours has the potential to reduce the stress on the popular SCR, which currently operates at full capacity during this period. The biggest boost to functionality from the refit is the opening up of the space in the sub-basement below Sherfield and ħ. This has created two activity spaces/meeting rooms for union clubs and societies, which were in desperately short supply. Unfortunately this has come at the expense of the staff snooker room, but given the desperate lack of space on campus and the large snooker room on the top floor of the Union, this did seem redundant.