Inside Victoria University’s new 32-storey city tower campus

Australia’s tallest university campus has been unveiled, along with one radical omission — and its vice-chancellor has explained why.

Victoria University Chancellor Steve Bracks at a sneak peak of Australia's largest vertical campus. Picture: Tony Gough

Australia’s tallest university campus will revitalise Melbourne’s CBD as 1600 students and staff “rub shoulders” with industry and employers in the heart of the city.

Victoria University’s 32-storey city tower officially opens on Tuesday as a dual-sector learning hub that has law, business, beauty therapy, and hospitality classes under the same roof.

Professional services such as remedial massage, dermal therapy and hairdressing are also be available to the public for free or discount prices – under the supervision of specialist teachers.

Chancellor and former state premier, Steve Bracks, said it was a “campus of the future, reimagined now” and would deliver an added bonus of bringing “vibrancy back to the city”.

“This is part of the Covid recovery really, this campus is going to attract so many students and teachers and it’s going to be incredibly active,” he said.

“It’s really designed to have students rubbing shoulders with industry leaders … to work with leading businesses and immerse themselves in their chosen professions well before graduating.”

The university uses a “block model” of teaching, where students learn one subject during a four-week intensive block, before moving on to the next unit.

Victoria University’s new 32-storey campus opened on Tuesday. Picture: Tony Gough

Vice-Chancellor Professor Adam Shoemaker said traditional teaching models meant students juggled multiple subjects at the same time, with exams held all at once and sometimes on the same day, whereas the block model ran assessments “each week as you go”.

“We don’t have any lecture theatres because after university you rarely set foot in lecture theatres,” he said.

An entire floor is dedicated to a “boardroom of the future”, however, with hi-tech digital displays designed by global IT company Cisco.

All students are in the same first-year faculty to “learn how to learn” in a tertiary setting, he said, while class sizes in the VU City Tower are capped at 36 to ensure better collaboration.

“People get to know each other better in a group of 30-something than in big lectures,” Prof Shoemaker said.

Prof Shoemaker said a key to its success was getting all professional accreditation bodies to agree to the shift from traditional learning models.

Jordan Carter, 29, said she lost her job in theatre during the pandemic and decided to retrain as a hairdresser. She now works at Port Melbourne salon True Colours while studying.

“Since working there my learning has skyrocketed, putting what I learn in here (the city campus) into real world situations,” she said.