Day 21: Melbourne Convention Exhibition Center

Today we took a visit to the Melbourne Convention Exhibition Center with another RMIT professor. The MCEC is one of the most innovative designs I have seen in person, including an incredibly complex building systems control programs that are capable of controlling seemingly every aspect of the building from a single tablet. The business developer for MCEC provided us with a very in depth and fascinating tour in to the buildings design, systems and construction, and he was very good at his job. By the end of the tour I was wishing  I had a conference to book here.

To say the building is "versatile" would be a laughable understatement. I am honestly not quite sure what event couldn't be held in the MCEC. From rock concerts to dinner parties to some of the world's largest professional conferences, the building is capable of handling all of them with ease. We toured around the large plenary auditorium with seating for 5,600 people (but of course it can be divided in to three independent rooms, each with its own stairs to separate break-out discussion rooms) and the large ballrooms, as well as an extensive look in to the back of house areas. The loading areas and kitchen might have been some of my favorite parts. Every room has great A/V capability and it is all tied in to a small lectern that can be moved around and control every thing in the room. Chairs in the auditorium can be raised and lowered on hydraulic jacks from stadium type tiers to below floor level with the touch of a tablet. It is truly amazing how so many aspects of buildings can be controlled by such small devices.

After being awed by the MCEC, we then headed over to another construction site from L.U. Simon. The Guilfoyle is another condominium development in Melbourne for student and single bedroom apartment renters. This was an interesting project to see as it was in much earlier stages than the Lacrosse development. We got to see many of the structural aspects of this building, including rebar tying and layout as well as form work for the concrete deck that was to be poured in the next few days.

Plenary Auditorium

Massive Elevator back of house in MCEC

MCEC business developer selling us his building

Pretty good view for a conference

Kitchen

Cool bridge outside MCEC

RMIT professor's awesome ponytail. We called him Fabio

Lots of concrete to be poured. Reminds me of this summer

Post-tension cables for the slab

Again the project manager on this site was very knowledgeable about his project and was able to answer all of the questions that we had, many of which having nothing to do with his job in particular. The people in the industry here seem very willing to help out and teach us things that they have learned through their experience in construction. I look forward to meeting with more people like this as I continue my thesis research.