University of South Australia | Developments & News

[[Shuz]]

Bloody hell. The Magill campus should just close, completely. I'd suggest Mawson Lakes should also, but they've invested far too much in that now, it won't happen. The Magill campus is just dead wood in the UniSA system based on location alone, let alone the ridiculous mish-mash of subjects which exist there, that really should be centralised.

If I were king, ultimately, everything would (and should) just be at City West and UniSA should offload their assets at City East to Adelaide Uni (at a nice tidy sum of course) to recoup the costs of undertaking a significant capital expenditure program to expand the City West campus.

I have a subject at Mawson Lakes, when all the rest of my subjects are at City East, which means I have to travel an hour to and from just to get there, for a two hour tute. It's really not worth the travel time, but seeing as attendaace at tutes are mandatory, I have no option but to. I'm one of hundreds, if not thousands of other students who face this situation. Time and convinience are the two most important things to manage my workload (work & uni) during the week, and this single block of travel is the biggest killer of my week in lost productivity.

Undergoing my course, I have absolutely no idea why Urban & Regional Planning has been lumped into the School of Natural and Built Environments, when our course and construction management are the only two 'urban' courses in the school, and really it should be with the School of Architecture and Design @ the City West campus - apparently a few years back, it used to be this way. I do wonder who the genuis was behind this move?

Should probably be voicing my concerns on unijam.

Here's hoping the vice-chancellor sees some sense in closing Magill and investing as much as possible into the City West campus.

[cruel_world00]

The Magill campus has stunning architecture and open spaces. It does not really need to be a university. I would hazard a guess that it could be used better as a cultural precinct for the East with cafes, shops etc.

[Vee]

Good point from Shuz re studying different subjects at different campuses and the difficulties this presents.
The ability to share library services, student services and other facilities at the Uni West Campus is a big plus.

Imagine having to make do with an inferior service or miss out because your course is at Magill. Online delivery is not the best solution for every service.

Cross fertilization of ideas, (students and staff), greater options for adding subjects to your course, sharing of campus services and accessibility arising from a central location in the CBD are reasons to continue the relocation of all courses from Magill to Uni West.

There are economies of scale available and an increased vibrancy at the central location that would be missing at the small and relatively isolated Magill site. Students would benefit from the increasing availability of student accommodation in the city, good transport links and proximity to other city servces and facilities.

The main building at Magill (and surrounding grounds) is a wonderful asset. It can be re-purposed. Some suggestions have already been made here.

[Ben]

From Indaily:

UniSA plans health hub on North Tce

Tuesday, 21 May 2013

Liam Mannix

THE University of South Australia is making plans for a new health precinct to be built alongside the new Royal Adelaide Hospital.

While a decision is far from final, the university’s interest is currently centred on the stretch of land between Montefiore Road and the under-construction South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute.

That land currently houses the metro rail control centre and Adelaide City Council’s skate park.

In response to a query from Indaily UniSA Vice Chancellor David Lloyd confirmed plans were underway for a “significant presence” near the new RAH.

“UniSA intends to have a significant presence on the north side of North Terrace; the nature and scale of the facility is very much a live discussion,” Lloyd told Indaily via an emailed statement.

UniSA’s chief operating officer Paul Beard told Indaily the uni was hoping to have a presence on the north side of North Terrace to accommodate increasing demand for health courses.

“It’s more about how we can best align some of our activities that need adjacency to a hospital – clinical placements for students, and those clinical training needs … simulation facilities down here, clinical labs and all those sort of things.

“The point about being on the north side of North Terrace is that’s where those other things are, so ideally we’d try and find a spot there somehow. And that’s really what we’ve started to come to bear in our thinking.

“All we’re saying is if we can try and find some adjacency to that health precinct that obviously makes even more sense.”

Beard said the university was looking at putting in new facilities within the next five years.

The university currently offers 20 undergraduate health programs including nursing, midwifery, pharmacy and physiotherapy.

The majority of these courses are taught at the university’s City East campus on the corner of North Terrace and Frome Road.

Beard said the City East site couldn’t grow any further to meet the growing demand for health programs.

“We’ve always been looking at it thinking how could we grow. We’ve got strong demand by high-quality students, there’s strong workforce need, good employment outcomes.

“We’ve got the need to grow to meet workforce need and student demand, but we don’t really have much space at all there to grow into.

“So when the hospital got announced down here and construction started, what we naturally did was say how can we accommodate some of that growth here in City West in the future.”

Indaily has been told by a senior chancellery source that the skate park site is currently seen by the university as the best place for any new development.

Beard said several parcels of land near the hospital were being considered.

“That (the skate park) is not the only bit of land in this precinct. There’s land that’s government controlled, there’s land that private developers own on the northern side.

“There’s the skate park, there’s the rail control centre which the government is going to relocate in the near future. There’s other parcels along there. So I don’t think I have to be specific about saying it’s any particular site.”

Much of the land around the new RAH is in the park lands, including the skate park.

However both sites are owned by the State Government and could be freely built on with government permission.

While the entire area up to the rail control centre is covered by the RAH Development Plan Amendment, the skate park is not.

Indaily understands that some concept designs have been prepared for the new facilities.

Health Minister Jack Snelling said he was aware of the plans but hadn’t been directly approached by the university. At this stage no government funding to support the project was on the table, he said.

“I don’t think they’ve spoken directly to me, but I do know that they have plans about allied health and situating down here and having basically a medical precinct around the area.”

The University of Adelaide has previously confirmed it plans to have a major presence at the new RAH.

[Nathan]

Out of curiosity, why can't it be positioned on the southern side of North Tce, towards the West Tce end? Despite having North Tce to cross, it'd still be closer to the new RAH, and also would connect better with the existing City West campus.

[crawf]

A university development on this prime piece of land would be a complete wasted opportunity. What it needs is a major tourism development, whether it's a large museum or an entertainment precinct.

I agree with Nathan.

[monotonehell]

A university development on this prime piece of land would be a complete wasted opportunity. What it needs is a major tourism development, whether it's a large museum or an entertainment precinct.

I agree with Nathan.

Don't be silly. It's not a wasted opportunity. A vague idea about a "major tourism attraction" is a nonsense idea. What kind of attraction? How would it work? Would it be profitable? We already have several museums, how would this be different?

This area is rapidly shaping up as an educational and health campus. What you suggest is better suited to the next two blocks which contain the casino, festival centre, the river bank, the oval, the gallery, the library, etc etc

[crawf]

A university development on this prime piece of land would be a complete wasted opportunity. What it needs is a major tourism development, whether it's a large museum or an entertainment precinct.

I agree with Nathan.

Don't be silly. It's not a wasted opportunity. A vague idea about a "major tourism attraction" is a nonsense idea. What kind of attraction? How would it work? Would it be profitable?

This is the last remaining large block of land left in CBD, with the added bonus of being smack bang between the Torrens River, Adelaide Convention Centre and North Terrace. It's the perfect opportunity to expand the Riverbank Precinct, whether if that includes a tourism, commercial development or even a new arena to replace the Adelaide Entertainment Centre.

It would be a wasted opportunity to build a hospital or university campus when there is plenty of space in the West End.

We already have several museums, how would this be different?

This area is rapidly shaping up as an educational and health campus. What you suggest is better suited to the next two blocks which contain the casino, festival centre, the river bank, the oval, the gallery, the library, etc etc

Why do we have to crame everything into this part of North Terrace. Yes we do already have a great selection of museums and galleries, however the problem is that SA Museum and Art Gallery of SA in particular aren't big enough to hold large exhibitions. Another problem is these buildings have very little room of expanding.

[Patrick_27]

Only point of concern; how long would it be before UniSA moves all its remaining east end facilities to the west end, and before Uni Adelaide move their health related facilities to the west. Bulking up on a side of the CBD that is already bulked up enough only for the east end to become a vacant waste-land once the hospital makes it's move.

[Colen001]

I agree that planning should be merged with architecture, and in the short term architecture should be moved to city east to be with planning/construction management to effectively free up space for the health division to move closer to the RAH. Though Magill campus is a fantastic place aesthetically it does need to be slowly closed down as a university and have its facilities spread between the three other metropolitan campuses. Having all the courses converge on a larger scale city west campus sounds like a good idea at first, but one must consider if 1) Adelaide University would even be interested in purchasing city east campus back of UniSA, if they themselves are looking at a west end presence 2) There is around 35,000 students at UniSA, so city west would need to be a huge campus to cater for that many people, it would be logistically easier to keep Mawson and City East to spread the load as it were. Also you never want to compromise one area of a city for the benefit of another. The west end will improve with the new RAH and as others have pointed out if the East end universities were all but abandoned, well nice buildings or not, an unused space is a waste and the east would be significantly disadvantaged. As for Shuz, taking an hour to get to Mawson Lakes from the city? Jump on the train for 20 mins, utilize your time with readings and walk to uni from the train station, makes Mawson not that bad a beast. Been there, done that.

[[Shuz]]

Architecture can't move to City East as all their studios, equipment and software are all very well established at City West. They do have quite start of the art facilities there for that course and I think it would be more pain than gain for them to move especially when Planning is a much smaller course that I think with a bit of rejigging wouldn't be too much hassle to transfer to City West.

If recent developments at Adelaide University are anything to go by, it seems evident they are looking to continue expanding their presence at City East and that would include reclaiming what they sold to UniSA initially.

I also have to catch the tram, transfer and catch the train to get to Mawson. Factor in walking, waiting and travel time it takes an hour. Not 20 minutes.

[mattblack]

Just because the health students could be moving out doesn’t mean the rest of the UniSA campus is redundant. Most of those facilities are on the eastern side of Frome Rd, an area slated by the state govt as an arts precinct once the hospital moves. With the amount of pedestrian traffic that would be generated extending the riverbank precinct would still be an option. This move would make sense on not only a economic level but also a logistical level to have all these services located centrally.

[jk1237]

Only point of concern; how long would it be before UniSA moves all its remaining east end facilities to the west end, and before Uni Adelaide move their health related facilities to the west. Bulking up on a side of the CBD that is already bulked up enough only for the east end to become a vacant waste-land once the hospital makes it's move.

I wouldn't be surprised if Adelaide Uni starts expanding into the RAH site over Frome Road once the hospital closes. The redbrick buildings are heritage listed, and although a large chunk will be given to the Botanic Gardens, there is still a lot of space for some new Adl Uni buildings and stuff

[Colen001]

Sorry Shuz was assuming from the Adelaide railway station to Mawson, used to take me about 50 mins door to door from Marion to Mawson in my first year. It does make economic sense to move all courses to City West, I just don't see it happening for sometime with recent developments at MM Mawson and the Hetzel building at City East. I guess if architecture is well setup at city west they will remain there, it would be nice if we joined them but the planning school is very well set up at City East. Just seemed to make some sense, health at city west (close to RAH), built enviorns at city east, education at Mawson, other courses spread out where they were needed.

[monotonehell]

As for my post above, sorry Crawf I was a bit harsh with my language, I guess I hadn't had my Snickers before then.

But what I said holds true. You need to look on a map, I think you have the wrong place in mind. This area on North terrace is not, "...smack bang between the Torrens River, Adelaide Convention Centre and North Terrace." It's the other side of the railway tracks and a huge hike away. Moving educational and research buildings to this area is about synergies. It's a good idea and these are the people with money to actually build real useful and functioning buildings, rather than some pie in the sky, nebulous idea about "a museum". Come back when you have a business case.

Adelaide Uni are already occupying many buildings on the other side of North Tce, I'm sure if any space opened up on campus they would be happy to occupy that instead. Moving the RAH down to the West End may reduce business a little for the East End, but the East End has much more going for it and this will create opportunities for the West End to develop.