From the outside the building seems to ignore the rules of statics as walls bend suddenly just to straighten up again elsewhere. 320,000 bricks had to be moved by hand to achieve the desired rounded effect which is also gives the building something grotesque and is reminiscent in parts of the fantasies of a Friedrich Hundertwasser.

The architects name is not Hundertwasser, though, but Frank Gehry - probably the most famous living architect in the world – who has again opened his box of tricks and has given the Australian metropolis its own Bilbao. The idea behind the new university building is a tree house. The idea came Gehry 2009, following a meeting with the dean of the business school. At the time Gehry scribbled a tree house with a central trunk and branches of learning and reflection on a sheet of paper.

According to the Australian radio station ABC, the architect has already taken the idea on board that many Australians describe his new building as a paper bag. "Maybe it's a brown paper bag, but it's flexible on the inside, there's a lot of room for changes or movement," he said. In reality his design philosophy is inspired less by paper bags than by artists and architects of the Renaissance period. These were fascinated with the folds of the skin and clothing, and he tried to imitate that effect with brick.

Inside, Gehry hopes the architecture will inspire students to work in an innovative and creative way. The classrooms are therefore oval-shaped, so that students can sit opposite from each other. In common areas there is extra space adorned with sofas for students to meet up and discuss ideas, whilst a deformed, mirrored staircase is supposed to be the meeting place for students from various disciplines – an exchange that might create ideas across subjects.