The University of Newcastle is testing the property industry's appetite for student accommodation at Honeysuckle as its unusual timber-framed building takes shape at the new campus.
The chunky frame of the four-storey Stage 1A building in Honeysuckle Drive will support a glass-covered structure housing the university's School of Creative Industries and an innovation hub.
The 1.5-tonne laminated spruce beams and columns have come from a factory in Austria to form the first timber-framed building of its type in Newcastle.
EJE Architecture design director Anthony Furniss has been on site watching with interest.
"I wouldn't lie: it's pretty exciting for us," he said of the firm's first foray into "mass timber" construction.
Mr Furniss said the timber, which was slightly more expensive than concrete and steel on a building this size, had aesthetic appeal and practical benefits.
"One is how quickly the build's occurring once it lands on site," he said. "From an environmental perspective, the timber is a sustainable resource, based on its supply chain, and the timber provides us with a carbon sink. Timber is actually sequestering the carbon."
The glue-laminated timber beams are between 40 and 78 centimetres thick, a size dictated by fire safety rather than everyday stresses.
"It has to be sized to enable it to hold its strength while it might be smouldering for a sufficient time for people to get out," Mr Furniss said.
The facade on the $23 million building could be attached by Christmas, and the building is due to open for second semester next year.
It is the first structure on a two-hectare site the university acquired from the state government in 2018.
Vice-chancellor Alex Zelinsky said the university was committed to developing the rest of the Honeysuckle campus, despite the impact of COVID-19 on its finances.
"Our commitment to our city campus is clear: we moved ahead with Stage 1A of our Honeysuckle City Campus amidst the COVID-19 pandemic," Dr Zelinsky said in a written response to questions from the Newcastle Herald.
"We are committed to developing this site."
He said the university was "testing the market's appetite to potentially partner and deliver a purpose-built student accommodation facility" on the campus.
The university announced in July that it would pause planning for its $200 million STEMM building on its main Callaghan campus.
Dr Zelinsky said the pandemic had forced the university to "look very hard at the way we invest and progress with our capital infrastructure investment".
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