Within the Future Fit decadal strategy, UNE has articulated the need for our operations to be financially stable and to “be a resilient university where our financial, physical and ICT resources and structure enables innovation, intrapreneurship and long-term sustainability”.

The Estate and Built Environment (EBE) team identify very strongly with this area of the Future Fit strategy, and particularly with the following strategic initiative:

• Develop and deploy a new Infrastructure Master Plan that:
  • supports a teams-based, flexible approach to working;
  • enables our place-based approach to knowledge creation and sharing;
  • supports our teaching profile and research priorities;
  • enhances our environmental sustainability;
  • ensures safety and security of students, staff and visitors to UNE;
  • addresses issues with aging infrastructure; and
  • improves operational efficiency.

In line with this strategic initiative, UNE has the opportunity to review how it engages with its campuses and how the physical infrastructure could be adapted to better suit the emerging requirements of all its users.

Previously this program of work was undertaken at a high level, without detailed data capture and analysis, and with poor retention of data. The work was also done in isolation, without an appropriate level of interaction within the Estate and Built Environment team, let alone the broader UNE community. Whilst the initial work is mostly technical and infrastructure centric, the more detailed Mater Planning will be highly consultative and there will be a number of opportunities for comment and input. This will commence towards the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022.

A significant challenge faced by EBE in providing an updated Master Plan is the lack of accurate built estate and infrastructure related data. In order to properly review the Master Plan, UNE needs to better understand what information was utilised to prepare the existing plan, and what additional information needs to be gathered, reviewed and utilised to accurately inform an updated Master Plan. For this baseline data set to accurately reflect the existing campus UNE needs to:

• Complete a campus wide space audit to understand how each existing space is currently used. This audit has recently been completed by EBE.
• Engage a consultant to undertake an Infrastructure Backlog Audit to form a detailed analysis of the existing condition of buildings and infrastructure on campus. This work is underway, and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2021.
• Develop a Strategic Asset Management Plan to identify which buildings should be demolished, retained, redeveloped and refurbished based on their proposed future use and identified maintenance This work will commence as the condition audit concludes and is scheduled to be completed in early 2022.

The data collection and building condition assessment (outlined in dot points 1 and 2 above) has been significantly influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly during times of reduced campus presence.

For the space audit, on Armidale campus, in dot point 1, EBE staff utilised the time afforded by reduced number of students, staff and visitor on campus to conduct physical audits, previously it was envisaged that the consultants doing the condition assessment would do this work. Prior to COVID, the Capital Development and EBE trades teams would not have had the time to dedicate to the audit, and we were able to redeploy them during their quieter times. The audit was also hampered by the number of desks, chairs etc utilised by staff working from home. However, a set of assumptions were made and that coupled with the knowledge of the EBE team meant that the audit was conducted and the data captured. For some of the newer team members, this was an excellent opportunity to pair with the longer serving staff and learn a about the campus.

Similarly, with the consultants engaged for the backlog audit the team has had to reconsider how some of the work is going to be completed, particularly during the lockdown currently being experienced in NSW. Activities that can be performed remotely are being done so by the EBE team in conjunction with the consultant team. Activities that may have been done in person or in a group are being conducted via zoom and those that cannot are being rescheduled. The staff have been working exceptionally well across the different teams within EBE and coming up with great work arounds and identifying different ways to get the work done, within the program agreed.

The data collected through the activities identified above will enable detailed analysis of our current state and give us a true picture of the existing campus infrastructure. This will provide a great platform to understand the opportunities the existing infrastructure might provide. It will also allow for the infrastructure “gaps” to be identified in support of the Places+ strategy around STEM_Q and other initiatives.

Then the fun really begins! 😊

For information about how you can engage in, or to share ideas you might have for the Master Planning process, please email Jo Scanlan: jscanla5@une.edu.au.