Chemistry Building Redevelopment
The School of Chemistry is currently undergoing a major building renovation. The overall plan will see teaching and office areas consolidated into the Chemistry West building while most research activities will be located in Chemistry East.
Stage 1A is completed and has seen the transformation of our 'heritage' first year teaching laboratories on the ground floor of Chemistry West into modern new laboratories with state-of-the-art fume-hood extraction and first-rate facilities for laboratory staff and students. Large flat screen display panels and computers have allowed multimedia presentations of experimental methods to be introduced to our laboratory programs.
Stage 1A "after" pictures can be viewed here.
Stage 1B has seen the transformation of the western side of the ground floor (level 1) into a new library and student resource area. Our existing library has been relocated from the basement of the East Wing and the Chemistry Learning Centre is now located adjacent to the new library. The existing CAL lab has been replaced by a new 'computer lounge', the Labyrinth. The area includes wireless networking and student meeting areas. New tutors' offices and a reception counter complete this stage.
Plans and graphics for stage 1B can be viewed here.
Stage 1C Enabling saw the relocation of the Electronics workshop, IT and X-ray facility from the east wing basement to the Masson building to allow stage 1C to proceed. Also a new glass workshop was constructed to allow space for a new waste chemical store to be built in stage 2A.
Stage 1C sees the transformation of the East Wing basement to become the new home of the Laser Spectroscopy and Materials Characterisation Laboratories (Bieske, Smith and Ghiggino groups) with this stage completed July 2009.
To see graphics of the new Laser Laboratories, click here.
Stage 2, will encompass renovation of the Level 2 teaching Lab, commenced in mid 2009 and is expected to finish at the end of the year. The southern end will include a resonance laboratory to house a new NMR, EPR and mass spectroscopy for teaching and research. There are many associated works included in this stage, including a new chemical waste store in the old glass workshop office, a new chemical storage space in the old basement plant room space to replace the external huts that have been demolished for the substation and beautification of the Monash road side of the building. Gases will be stored and reticulated to the new laboratories from external rooms adjacent to the liquid nitrogen vessel. There is also a brand new main switchboard being installed in the plant room to service Chemistry and some other buildings fed from the substation installed in stage 1B.
A drawing of the Teaching Lab can be viewed here.
Stage 3, will replace the North lab, JOL and Senior labs with the new 3rd level teaching labs. The 3rd level of the east wing, the old Davis lab etc will become brand new state-of-the-art synthetic labs for research groups.
We will keep this site updated with photos and news as it comes to hand so that everyone can see our renovations come to life!