Day 22: RMIT site

Today was definitely the most progress I have made as far as ground level research is concerned on my thesis. First we met with the head of the school of Construction Management at RMIT, who was incredibly knowledgeable and helpful to each of our research topics. He was able to point me to the RMIT training school where construction tradesman are educated and certified. I will be in touch with this school for the rest of our time in Melbourne.

After a brief Q&A session, he took us to the newest RMIT campus building under construction. This building, as with every other one at RMIT was an incredibly avant garde design and sometimes excessively complex. The contractor, Brookfield Multiplex must have nightmares about the construction of the building. However, the project manager took us around the job, which is nearing completion, and was very excited about all of the challenges the design had caused and was eager to show us all of the unique aspects of the building.

10 month lead time on these panels that were shipped in from Germany

On the roof

The drywall nightmares begin...

See what I mean?

It took 4 weeks just to hang, finish and paint this ceiling.

One of the prefabricated ceiling structures

The wildly eccentric facade of the building

Words really cannot do much justice to the building so I'll post a few extra pictures in this post. To sum it up, I would have hated to be hanging drywall in this building, as it seemed that there was not one right angle in the entire project. However, the project manager explained that extensive use of prefabricated panels (with lead times of up to 10 months) and building segments had been used to save both time and labor costs on the project. I really cannot imagine how the project was ahead of schedule like it was, and on budget as well. I have a healthy respect for Brookfield Multiplex as a company and congratulate them on the timely production of such a difficult design.