An Iconic Building Takes Shape
On a hot day in December 1979, a ring of onlookers began gathering around a
construction site on the institute’s grounds. School children had been bused
in for the occasion and GIAE staff and students joined the throng of spectators.
They watched a procession of cement trucks arriving and saw gumbooted workers,
shirts off in the sun, pour the cement between two large circular membranes.
Directing operations and distinctive in his yellow gumboots was architect Dr
Dante Bini, inventor of structures known as binishells - concrete domes that
were inflated into place.
The moment arrived. With the concrete poured and the outer membrane carefully
arranged, air pumps were started and valves turned on so that 300 tons of concrete,
reinforcing steel and membrane could be inflated into a dome. In little more
than an hour, the eleven metre high binishell mushroomed into shape. GIAE had
its iconic building.
Now a distinctive landmark in Churchill, the binishell has special significance
for alumni and forms a link between GIAE and Monash University Gippsland
Campus. It is here that graduates of both institutions have gathered for
their graduation ceremony. It is here, too, that staff see students they have
taught or have corresponded with through distance education, receive their degrees
and diplomas. There is always a frissonof anticipation as the opening
bars of the ceremonial music sound and staff, dressed in academic regalia,
process down the central aisle. Graduates share a feeling of excitement and
achievement as they wait for their names to be announced. Wearing gowns and
hoods that represent the colours of Faculties and Schools, they step onto the
binishell stage to receive their new and hard won qualifications. |
