Your student experience matters greatly. Following your feedback, we’ve been working hard over the last year to improve our facilities and services for students across Central Saint Martins. Here’s a roundup of what’s new in the college!
New equipment in our workshops
We’ve invested in a range of new equipment for our student workshops, including:
- A new pickle bath, wax heaters, guillotine and chopsaw for our Archway workshops
- Updated software, sound production equipment and edit suite hardware in Film and Video
- New open access Still Life tables outside the main entrance to Photography
- New digital printers in Digital Print.
- New glass worktops, screen clamps, and an LED light box in Printmaking
- New digital embroidery machines in the Surface Design Lab
- Mobile, programmable LED lighting in Performance
- New tools in the 3D Make First Floor General Workshop
- Two new steam iron boilers in Fashion
- New sewing machines and dubied knitting machines in Fashion
Find out more about our workshops
More space for physical computing
The Physical Computing workshop has relocated from J205 to the ground floor in K005. This new space has increased the workshop’s capacity for larger projects, and benefits from closer proximity to fabrication equipment in the 3D Make wood and metal workshops. Coding support is offered across both K005 and J205, for areas such as responsive environments, machine learning, and data mining. A new Digital Media technical specialist will also support this area on Fridays, ensuring support for the facility is available to students five days a week.
Learn more about our digital workshops
Updates to the Ceramics workshop
We have swapped around Print and Glaze rooms in Ceramics to make better use of space, and we're also in the process of changing over to a water- based print system.
Find out more about our ceramics workshop
Improved extraction and ventilation systems
We’ve made considerable improvements to our extraction and ventilation systems to improve the air quality in our workshops! Students are now benefitting from upgraded or brand-new systems in print and dye, the glaze lab, the ceramics plaster area, the ceramics kiln room, the Archway sculpture yard and casting workshop.
Free access to Digimap
UAL students can get free access to Digimap, an online map and data delivery service. Digimap offers a number of data collections, including Ordnance Survey, historical, geological, LiDAR and marine maps and spatial data. Access to these tools is helpful for research, particularly for spatial practices students. You can also download the raw spatial data in a wide range of formats for use in local GIS, CAD or image processing software.
New Grow Lab
We’ve launched a new Grow Lab, where students from our Biodesign, Material Futures and Art & Science courses are exposed to scientific principles and experimental design. Projects in the grow lab involve growing bacteria and yeast, propagating plants or running bioreactors.
Find out more about the Grow Lab
New assessment criteria
The UAL Assessment Criteria are a set of standards against which the work that you submit is measured. Following feedback from our staff and students, we’ve amended the criteria to make them simpler and easier to understand. Your work will now be marked against five different criteria: enquiry, knowledge, process, communication and realisation.
Find out more about the new Assessment Criteria in this short film
New student deals
We’ve partnered with restaurants and shops around King’s Cross to bring you great deals in the local area. Just show your CSM ID card to claim the offers! You can also download the King’s Cross app for access to exclusive events and even more discounts.
Find out more about deals in local shops and restaurants.
Make @ Story Garden
Interested in community engagement? Check out MAKE @ Story Garden, CSM's new public space for creative collaboration and innovation. MAKE@ Story Garden embraces the skills and talents of those who live, work and study in Somers Town and the wider Camden area, to engage with local issues and tackle social challenges. Through a weekly programme, MAKE offers access to hands on making workshops, talks and collaborative projects that promote creativity, cooperation and knowledge-sharing; learning together by doing together.
Find out more about MAKE @ Story Garden
Improvements to the MyUAL app
Based on student feedback, we’ve made some improvements to the MyUAL app. You can now check your print credit balance and top-up online, personalise your app, get news and events specific to your interests, and be the first to hear about any tech issues by setting up alerts.
25% reduction in printing costs
The cost of colour printing on UAL Print machines has been reduced by 25% since January 2020. The new colour printing costs are as follows:
* A4 colour: 15p per page (previously 20p)
* A3 colour: 24p per page (previously 32p)
Print machines can be found across CSM, in the library and on the bridges. These printers can be used for standard printing, scanning and copying. For more specialist printing, speak to our technicians in the digital print room.
Find out more about printing at UAL
New commitment to the climate emergency
The climate emergency is one of the most urgent problems facing society and the planet, and is one of the issues most important to our students. In September, we announced our aim to use our leadership in human-centred research, teaching and knowledge exchange to influence the creation of a sustainable future for everyone. UAL is to put decarbonisation at the heart of our academic offer through three major new commitments. We’ve also been hosting climate emergency assemblies, in which students and staff arrived at viable proposals that UAL will be asked to implement in 2020.
Increased student wellbeing services
UAL students can benefit from professional, confidential and free help and advice all year round. You can contact the Counselling, Health Advice and Chaplaincy Service for emotional, health and mental health support, as well as advice on spiritual, religious and faith-related matters. The Disability and Dyslexia Service arranges adjustments and provides support for students who are disabled, dyslexic or have another Specific Learning Difficulty. If you need someone to talk to outside of normal working hours, you also contact our out of hours team.
New equipment in the central loan store
Our Central Loan Store has been equipped with a range of new visual, audio and lighting equipment for students to borrow, free of charge.
Still photography:
- New Canon EOS 6D Mark II
Moving image:
- Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K
- SONY PXW-X70/4K camcorder
- SONY PXW-Z90 4K camcorder
- DJI Ronin-S Gimbal
Hybrid shooting:
- GoPro HERO8 Black
- Sony Alpha A7R Mark II Digital Camera Body
- Sony A7 III Digital Camera with 28-70mm Lens
Display:
- HITACHI CP-EX303 3,300AL XGA LCD projector
- HITACHI / MAXELL MC-CX301WN 3,100AL XGA LCD short throw projector
- HITACHI / MAXELL MC-CX301WN 3,100AL XGA LCD short throw projector
Lighting:
- DEDOLIGHT DLED7-D 2 head lighting kits plus a range of colour filters
Audio recording and playback:
- Genelec 8010A Active Studio Monitor
- Sennheiser HD 200 Pro Studio Headphones
- Free Space Binaural Microphone
Virtual reality and 360 cameras:
- Oculus Go 64GB VR Headset
- Vuze XR VR180/360 Dual Camera