While enough onion and peppers to add to spaghetti for a single person were being fried on Thursday afternoon in the Common Room, the smoke alarm was triggered. Two security guards, and later building manager Johan Lauwers, came to check out the situation. The TU/e fire service also responded, but was able to return to its fire station in the Multimedia Pavilion without having to put out a fire.

Jackie Edwards, Cosmos member and Master's student of Industrial Design, was present when the building manager arrived. “He said it wasn't possible that nothing had happened. But we saw no smoke and heard no alarm. There wasn't anything going on and there was only enough food for one person being cooked. The building manager forbade us from cooking for the rest of the day.”

She believes that the smoke alarm is too sensitive. According to another Cosmos member, Michael Stolk (Biomedical Technology student), the main problem with the smoke alarm is that it is unpredictable. “We sometimes see the red lamp go on. That last happened when I was cooking hamburgers. We went straight to security to report that it was a false alarm, but they hadn't received an alert.”

As well as having the standard refrigerator, dishwasher and microwave oven, the Common Room pantry in MetaForum  received a hob when Cosmos moved in. The building manager shows us the extractor hood above the hob: “This uses a carbon filter. It filters the air and then emits it three meters away in the same room.”

"Perhaps it has something to do with the students' culinary skills..."

Four or five times a year the alarm sounds, knows Eric van der Heijden of the TU/e fire service. “That is a lot for a single alarm. The only other alarm that is triggered with a similar frequency is in De Bunker. And there, too, people cook next to the alarm.”

There has never been a real fire in the Common Room. Van der Heijden counters the claim that the alarm is set to be too sensitive. “It has the standard setting. Perhaps it has something to do with the students' culinary skills. Adapting the extraction system may solve the problem. But that is the province of Real Estate Management and the building manager.”

Jackie Edwards would like a thermal alarm that reacts to heat instead of smoke, condensation or dust. “We are supposed to cook here. The idea of the Common Room is that we eat together and develop a community feeling. That is really important to us. We cook every day - lunch, dinner, and weekends we even cook breakfast. Sometimes for large groups.”

Johan Lauwers: “The policy is that cooking is not permitted in the pantries; at most, food can be heated up. I want to stick to that. Unless Martin Boers, director of Internal Affairs, tells me that the policy has been changed.”

When asked, Boers says that he sees no reason to amend the rules. “De Plint will soon be getting a facility with a large restaurant kitchen. In good time we can consider whether we should have cooking take place there.”