New building sets standard for transformed medicine precinct
With its unique design and stunning features, the Biomedical Learning and Teaching Building (BLTB) has established itself as an academic and architectural landmark on the Clayton campus.
Housing its first intake of students since opening its doors in March this year, the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute (BDI) has received positive feedback on the BLTB from staff and students alike.
“Our new teaching laboratories enable us to provide students with a more authentic, practical learning experience, and it’s been rewarding to see how engaged the students have been with the formal and informal spaces in the BLTB,” Associate Professor Elizabeth Davis, Deputy Director of Education, Monash BDI, said.
The BLTB repositions the medicine precinct as an accessible, connected and dynamic student and staff-oriented learning environment, and delivers five levels of world-class biomedical learning and teaching spaces.
Particularly striking are the four ‘flexi labs’ situated on four levels of the building, which provide adaptive learning hubs capable of accommodating 240 students on each floor. Complete with world-leading AV speaker and video technology, this enables an interdisciplinary sharing of spaces and ideas, and large or small classes to take place simultaneously.
“The design and resourcing of the BLTB will facilitate our development of curricula that aligns with the Focus Education agenda. By incorporating innovative activities into our practical teaching programs, we'll provide more opportunities for students to develop core skills such as problem-solving and critical thinking to prepare them for their future careers,” Associate Professor Davis said.
There's also a teaching lab built to Physical Containment Level 2 (PC2), a biomedical safety level that ensures the containment of biological agents, and the safety of staff, students and the environment.
An entire floor of the BLTB is dedicated to the Centre for Human Anatomy Education (CHAE), fully equipped with the latest anatomical teaching infrastructure, including spaces earmarked for dissection and prosection educational activities.
The BLTB, designed and built to achieve a five-star rating on the Green Star Design and Build rating scale, will also play an integral role in the University’s pledge to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2030. Designed for high energy efficiency and storage, and using high-performance Passive House principles, the BLTB will soon become Monash’s first all-electric building.
It features a hybrid 1MWh battery on the roof, the largest behind–the-meter commercial battery in Australia. The building will connect to the Monash microgrid, which will serve as a working model for a 100 per cent renewable-powered smart city.
As well as helping the University manage how and when renewable energy is used on campus, it will serve as a living laboratory where technology, business models and regulatory regimes can be tested, and solutions to today’s energy challenges unlocked, in close collaboration with the energy industry, government and regulators.
“Monash is redefining a university’s role in creating a sustainable future and achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals – a blueprint to attaining a better and more sustainable future for all,” Scott Ferraro, program director of Net Zero, said.
“Grid-interactive, all-electric and through our power purchase agreement with the Murra Warra wind farm, the BLTB is a physical demonstration of net zero principles in action. The microgrid will enable us to show how smart control of our energy resources can result in the use of 100 per cent renewable power, providing benefits to the Monash community, the wider energy network, and consumers.”
About the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute
Committed to making the discoveries that will relieve the future burden of disease, the newly established Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute at Monash University brings together more than 120 internationally-renowned research teams. Our researchers are supported by world-class technology and infrastructure, and partner with industry, clinicians and researchers internationally to enhance lives through discovery.