A great aerial shot of the Village

This shot taken from the UNSW L5 building opposite New College gives a good sense of the bulk of the building and the progress.

For UNSW alumni a note on the L5 building. It replaced the old bowling alley which was later Unisearch House. The University has built a wonderful 8 storey high building on site (actually our builder for the NCV - Lipman actually built it!!) which houses the University Foundation Studies Program for overseas students and also a major IT research centre (NICTA). UNSW sold the building last year and those parts of UNSW still using it have leased the space back. The building has won many architectural awards. In a review Architecture Australia comented that the building "is flawless, both in execution and conception".

A great aerial shot of the Village

At the half way mark!

Yesterday we reached the halfway mark with the structure. The second half of the fourth floor slab was laid and the walls for half of Level 4 have been erected. In fact, if you include the basement we are well past halfway and the structure is growing one storey each 13 days. We expect the final floor of the structure to be completed by mid-July.

The central courtyard will (I suspect) be one of the key sites for social interaction in the Village. It will be the site of Friday afternoon BBQs that Carmen and I intend to host. While it is currently used to store materials, it will eventually have a raised lawn and garden, a BBQ area and wireless access to the Internet.

At the more micro level, it has also been exciting to see the services beginning with plumbing well underway. We will also see the first windows installed this week and Level 1 will soon be completely stripped ready for full fit-out.

At the half way mark!