Day 22: Modern Architecture Exposed

Today began like many days, waking up around 9:00am. I spent time doing some online research of buildings in Melbourne that might satisfy case study requirements. Specifically, I was attempting to find contact information in order to set up a technical tour of a building and have a point of reference upon return to Auburn. Reel was attempting to contact Clive to get a technical tour of the Convention Centre while I was looking into getting tours of The Gauge, a building right across the river from the Convention Centre. (Attempting to have options!) Through a process of several phone calls, I ended up leaving a message with a facilities manager requesting a tour for 3 students and 1 professor. After I made this call, it was time to head downstairs to meet up with the full group and start the day's activities.

We left around 12:30pm from the Village and headed off on foot in the direction of the RMIT campus. Today we would be meeting up with one of Professor Hein's friends who studied under the same professor at Princeton. Once we made it to our usual room, he met to go over the planned events. Professor Hein's friend, who is native Australian currently living in Melbourne (though he taught for several years at Virginia Tech), entertained many questions we had concerning the building industry and customs here in Australia. He was full of knowledge and also seemed to have a huge network of connections within the Melbourne construction industry. Several folks (possibly me) will be in contact with him to conduct literary research and to obtain references pertaining to thesis topics.

After the question and answer session Professor Hein's friend led us on a tour of the RMIT campus, which was actually much larger than I originally realized. As we walked around, I took a couple of pictures. Many of the buildings on campus are examples of adaptive reuse of older buildings like the jail and an old court room. Here's a look:

Former Jail

After the campus tour, we came back to the previous room to grab our hard hats and safety vests. We were headed to a building directly across the street that is currently under construction and will be an education facility for RMIT. We had about 20 minutes of time to kill before the construction management team was expecting us on site, so we took a break in the downstairs cafeteria. I didn't purchase anything, though I did learn not to sleep in the RMIT cafeteria. Not from first hand experience, but from seeing a security guard get ticked off at a man who was sleeping while sitting up at one of the booth tables. Apparently if you get caught twice sleeping in the cafeteria, your swipe card is revoked. Good thing this is not a policy at Auburn...

Anyway, after the short break we wandered over to the construction site and met the construction team personnel who showed us through the multiple story education building. Perhaps the most sophisticated way to properly describe this building is an expression of modern architecture. However, I prefer to call things the way I see it - it was downright some of the craziest and most complicated architecture I have ever seen. I think it is hard to describe in words the immense complexity with which each room and each facade was designed. Basically, walls were going everywhere, both interior and exterior, that took sharp angles along all three axes (x, y, z) with absolutely no repetition anywhere of any angles. It seemed like quite a nightmare to build, but the work that had been completed looked great. Color options and finishes were just as complicated and non-repetitive. Anything from carpet, polished concrete, metal coated in paint used for cars, to artificial turf (and everything in-between) had been chosen by the architects. The front atrium had been design to look like a tree from the side (a representation of the tree that originally stood directly outside, but, to the architects utter dismay, had been cut down during site development. Haha!) and was clad in panels of various shades of green. I took a few pictures to better describe the architecture, so here is a look:

The tree interpretation

Top profile view of tree interpretation design

Under the "Tree" Atrium

More oddly angled walls

The tour of the building was really enjoyable and when it was over we thanked the construction team for their time before heading back to turn in our hard hats and safety vests.

We went back to the Village just after 5:00pm via the tram and I had originally planned to do some work before going to catch some live music at the Night Market. (The same market where I bought my hat the first day!) However, I had been feeling slightly under the weather all day (despite medicine) and decided to rest instead. Some three hours later I woke up to find the few people who had ventured over to the Night Market returning, so I went back in my room and continued to research and post blogs. A little bit later in the evening many folks met up with the RMIT RA's and we spent some time hanging out and enjoying the evening. After some time, I went back up to my room, checked facebook, and fell asleep wondering what surprises Anoop might plan for tomorrow!