Tuesday January 24, 2012
This morning the professors have arranged for us to visit
UniTech, which is a polytechnic university here in Auckland with a highly
regarded construction and architecture school. A couple different faculty
members met with us for a couple of hours. The purpose of these trips is to
learn the differences in the US and the practices of other countries. I suppose
this collaborative learning will help us understand the construction market
globally.
Jay, Chris, and I were able to visit a 6 Green Star building
currently in the construction phase here in Auckland. The architect was
extremely helpful and is a great contact for information for thesis work. He
led us around the building, which was very cool. The best feature lies in the
parking basement, a car lift. I have never seen such. Because the building is
on small patch of land, the parking garage needed to be designed as efficiently
as possible. The parking garage consists of 4 bays that customers and office
personnel can pull in to. Once that have gotten out of their car, the bay sends
their car onto an elevator, which then parks the car below in one of the 3
floors of the parking system. The person is then given a barcode receipt. When
they come back, they simply scan this barcode receipt and a computer tells you
what bay your car will arrive in. Your car arrives and you drive out. Fully
automatic with no operation personnel! Pretty scary! Apparently the building
owner has a ton of money to spend and thought the system was “cool”. Well Mr.
Building Owner, that is cool.
Tonight Steele and I set out to find a good restaurant. To
frequently, we have settled for mediocre food because the group is too tired to
keep walking. Also, group decisions are never easy. After evaluating 5 or 6
restaurants, we settled on a small but nice Italian restaurant. We called the
rest of the group and they met us. I was thankful to have a nice sit down meal
that was actually worth the money. This was.
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