In recent decades, universities have been among the greatest patrons of contemporary architectural investment and innovation in Australia, and particularly in Victoria. Anyone who walked down Swanston Street in the nineties will recall the indelible impact of RMIT Building 81 and Storey Hall on a city otherwise dominated by monochrome office buildings, which slumbered on weekends. These buildings enlivened a streetscape that was yet to become iconic globally and indicated that something interesting and palpable was occurring behind closed facades. Beyond imagery, and even iconography, architecture assists in the attraction of talent to universities. Australian universities that have risen and continue to rise through world rankings wish to remain globally competitive in areas of research, learning, teaching, enterprise and innovation. Buildings which incorporate contemporary technologies and pedagogies, and which nurture, inspire, welcome and contribute broadly to their contexts, assist these ambitions.
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