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Tours of this building will operate every 30 minutes during opening hours.

The Australian Industry Trade College (AITC) is a deliberately different school for students in Years 10 to 12 who wish to complete senior school and start an apprenticeship. The school enables and empowers young people to find their purpose and proudly pursue a pathway in industry.

The college was established in 2006 and now has 330 students at the Gold Coast campus. Many of the students helped build the campus under the eye of Alder Constructions, which began work on the facility in February 2010. Design development of the building took roughly three months to procure and the actual building work was completed on a 10-month construction program.

The building, opened in April 2011, encloses a central courtyard and has 1600sqm of floor space with learning spaces, gymnasium and administration at ground level and staff rooms above.

The initial design concept was put together by Amy Degenhart of DegenhartSHEDD. This design was further modelled and adjusted to suit the AITC special requests to accommodate the specific administration and training facility layouts.

The classroom building required numerous concrete bored pier foundations to support the structure. Soil sampling suggested the existing ground conditions were unsuitable to support the proposed development. Deep foundations were drilled in to the existing ground areas to support the new structure.

Some interesting facts about the AITC structure:

• The classroom building is constructed using all precast tilt-panel construction ensuring the facility will remain durable and modern for a considerably long future.
• The administration building is constructed in a light weight product called Hebel, which is the rendered and painted. Hebel provides a light weight solution that offers excellent thermal qualities for insulation. The Hebel is also installed over a complete steel frame wall system which is also light weight and durable.
• The courtyard utilises synthetic turf and featured landscaping fixtures to give the impression of an open park arrangement.
• The front offices of the administration building have a completely reflective glass, however from the inside, you can clearly see passers-by!
• The buildings are linked via fibre optic network cabling, allowing the college to modernise and grow with technical advancements for many years to come.
• It is suggested the water harvesting will take up of over 100,000L per annum.
• The solar system is an 8kW system which provides an annual total 11,000kWh – saving the college approximately $3000 a year in energy costs.