We had two sites to visit today. The first was the Melbourne Convention Center, which was completed a few years ago and is fully operational right now, and the Guilfoyle, which is another urban apartment complex that is just getting started.
We arrived at the
Melbourne Convention Center at about 8:30 a.m. to be given a tour by their business development manager, Clive Dwyer.
This was about an AUD$500 million building that was built right in the middle of town.
It was absolutely breathtaking and possibly the most
technologically advanced building I have been in to date.
It is also a 6 Star Green Star environmentally rated building.
This means that is the only one of its kind in the whole world.
We had the privilege of getting to see both the front of house and back of house amenities which really enabled us to get a good feeling for how this thing works and puts on conventions and conferences from anywhere from 50 to 5,000 delegates.
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| The main foyer |
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| Just a small part of the main kitchen that services all of the other kitchens. Since Melbourne is known for its food and wine, the convention center prides itself with having world class executive chefs with indisposable resources to produces the freshest and most superb meals to large numbers of people. There are service doors for each room where a meal could be served and a satellite kitchen that can have its size adjusted to meet any needs. Food is prepped and partially cooked here in the main kitchen and then finished and plated right before it is to be served. This a picture of the area where sauces and soups are created. |
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| All of the food is brought in through one door and catalogued. This is a picture of the dried goods such as nuts and spices. |
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| This is the main plenary that seats over 5,000 people |
The next site was that of the Guilfoyle.
This is another multi-story urban apartment building that is again right in the middle of the city.
It was still early in its construction so there wasn’t too much to see.
Check out the rendering of what this building will look like when it is done
here.
What an incredible place the Melbourne Convention Center was. I have never been more impressed after a regular old boring building tour. Usually tours of this such, make me want to rip my eyeballs out, but this was was unbelievable. Not only was it quite possibly one of the coolest buildings in the world, but Clive Dwyer (the Center's Director of Business Development) truly SOLD the billing to us. If I ever have the money, and my own company, I will fly everyone all the way to Melbourne for a convention. And how about that dang kitchen? Whooooeee! What an impressive system they have back there! Melbourne really has the design of buildings figured out. Every single detail of a building has a million and one reasons why it is so!
ReplyDeleteBiiiyeee!