Today we were able to sleep in. I'm starting to like this late start business. It has allowed me to get adequate sleep and have time for breakfast and relaxation in the morning. We met at RMIT again to take a tour of their new building for their business school. Mr. Wakefield, the head of their construction management school, was extremely generous and answered every question we had about Australia. It was the first time we all have been able to sit down with someone and ask these things. Afterwards, he gave us a short RMIT campus tour.
After meeting with Mr. Wakefield, we made our way across the street to the new RMIT business building. As soon as I saw the building, I knew the inside was going to insane. The building is 11 stories tall with 4 large lecture halls, a ton of collaborative teaching classrooms, and large 2 story student lounges. The outside is covered with odd shaped windows and anodized color aluminum sheets. Inside, the main staircase is designed so each stair between the 11 levels is different and all floors are differently shaped around the atrium. None of the ceilings inside the building are flat. They all consist of jagged edges and crazy profiles cladded in panels painted with bright automotive enamel.
All of the classrooms are prewired to adjust HVAC, lighting, and other components according to the schedule of the building. Each room knows when there is a lecture and when to turn off these systems. The project manager stated the building has over $7 million in A/V technology alone. This is minimal in the overall $170 million budget for the entire project. Another cool feature was in the student lounges. First, there were over 6 two story student lounges in the entire building which is ridiculous. It would be so nice if Auburn had more student learning spaces like these. In these lounges, the windows open and close, gas heaters activate, and misters activate automatically all according to the weather conditions. In the large lecture halls, each light can me remotely lowered to allow easy replacement at floor level. This must have been extremely costly considering each hall had at least 25-30 lights. I could go on forever about this building, but I will let the pictures below explain.
Tonight we went to the pub next door for 50 cent wings. They had an awesome ginger & soy flavor that I ate 25 of. I probably could have eaten 25 more but I wanted to save room for food at the night market. Each week during summer weather, the market is open at night for summer market. Food vendors are everywhere and there is live music, bartenders, and sangria. It was a really cool place and we really enjoyed it. We all got honey dumplings which are basically unsweetened donut holes with ice cream, chocolate, cinnamon, and sesame seeds on top. They were delicious.
After the night market, our Australian friends decided to take us to another pub. It was fun but extremely interesting. Even though we did not stay there long at all, it was still a long night. Thankfully we don't meet until 1:00pm tomorrow so I have plenty of time to get some sleep.
Touring the RMIT campus.
I wondered why this grass looked so perfect. Turns
out it is fake. Astro turf has come a long way.
On top of the new RMIT business building.
The irregular staircases down all 11 floors. Nightmare for
a contractor.
The irregularly shaped ceilings. Another nightmare.
Inside of one of the indoor/outdoor student lounge spaces.
The unfinished ceiling of one of the lecture halls. Notice the irregular walls.
One of 3 jagged shaped windows in the building.
A finished lounge ceiling.
Inside the front atrium. The left side is an exposed brick
wall from an adjoining historical building.
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