New Academic Street Unleashed

The New Academic Street (NAS) Unleashed program marked the start of building works that will transform the heart of the City campus.

The events gave students the opportunity to learn more about the building project, which will upgrade facilities and improve life on campus, and gave them a firsthand look at what it takes to transform a city block.
More than 1800 students got involved in the events, which kicked off with a virtual reality tour of the new spaces via two Oculus Rift units.

A team of recent graduates from the Bachelor of Design (Games) and Bachelor of Information Technology (Games Graphics Programming) in the VxLab created the software that transported students into mid-2017 when the centre of the campus will be renovated and opened up to the surrounding CBD.

More than 200 staff and students joined Pro Vice-Chancellors, Professor Peter Coloe and Professor Paul Gough at the launch of the Urban Animators: Living Laboratory digital projection and hoarding art program.

RMIT students, staff and alumni offered an artistic response to the ever-changing CBD environment and Building 10 on Swanston Street was transformed into a vibrant kinetic canvas, as six animated artworks were projected onto it after dusk.

Thousands of visitors, commuters, students and residents enjoyed the 20-minute show every night for a week and the fixed art will be installed onto hoarding in October.

Later in the week, the NAS Unleashed team and RUSU partnered to produce an epic farewell to The Hub in Building 10 (it’s still there until October but will re-open with new name and location while the renovations are underway).

More than 550 people got into the Demolition Party spirit and enjoyed live artworks by graffiti artists, DJs and break-dancers with drinks, cocktails, snacks and a pumping dance-floor inside spaces that will soon be demolished.

In week two a series of informative and engaging briefing sessions continued including:

• NAS Preconstruction Briefing Series, offering more than 140 staff information about how students will be impacted and who they can contact for any queries or concerns. FAQs from these sessions have been added to the New Academic Street project. 
• NAS Paperbag Lunch Sessions for students presented the lifecycle of the project whilst enjoying a sandwich or three.
• NAS Deconstruction Briefing Series, delivered by a team of industry experts across a range of topics: Environmental and Sustainable Design by Nick Bamford and Michael Li (AECOM); Structural Engineering by Brendon McNiven (ARUP) and Nigel Bertram (NMBW Architecture Studio); Construction and Project Management by Marcus Bailey and Ben Brown (Lend Lease) and Architecture and Design presented by Lyons.

More than 700 students attended the curated sessions. There was a high level of engagement, resulting from the unparalleled access to the industry experts leading this unique building project.

The New Academic Street, which will progressively hand facilities back to students and have new student study spaces in Building 10 ready by the start of 2016.