Simon Butcher

The top ten floors of this place are so fancy that they're glazed with 24-carat gold plated windows, and yet are sold unfinished for more than AUD$7m. On the 88^th floor is an observation deck, known as the Eureka Skydeck.

The Skydeck also features an attraction called The Edge, which is a completely glass cube (including glass floor and ceiling) that is extended three metres out of the building with people inside it. This attraction is unique in the world, until it gets enlarged and copied in North America. Naturally, I had to have a look at this!

Before you enter the elevator, there's a waiting room area called the Touch Discovery, which includes a giant poorly designed copy of Microsoft Surface which they call the Serendipity Table. Images are projected onto the table from above and the entire six-metre long table is touch sensitive. Whoever designed this apparently failed to comprehend how unique the interface of touch can be, and everything is designed as buttons: You cannot move or scroll things around, only click on things.

Small cubes of information float around on the table above some red digital goo (which you can splash, albeit very slowly). If you touch a cube, it unrolls itself at the edge of the table and presents some photos and information to the visitor. Despite the painfully unresponsive and slow interface and the other technical short-comings, the table does a good job at presenting Melbourne's historical sights and prepares you for the view above.

Once you're ready, you can take the elevator up to the Skydeck. As usual with these buildings, you're treated like an idiot and escorted into the elevator where the button is pressed on your behalf. The elevator whisks you up at 9-metres per second (32.4km/h) and you arrive before you know it.

The Skydeck is a fairly relaxed area with an over-priced coffee shop, with adequate seating and stunning views. The décor is filled will subtle lighting and heaps of crossing LED scrolling signs detailing the sights and history of Melbourne in the direction it's scrolling. The Skydeck has a few mounted binoculars, but also has several fixed tubes which you can look through to see sights of particular importance.

The Edge is an additional experience you can visit for an additional cost which is a completely glass cube extended three metres out of the building. To enter The Edge, you must first don some amazingly fashionable protective overshoes to help protect the glass floor of the cube from dirt and scratches. You enter the glass cube while it is within the building.

The Edge is glazed with Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal (PDLC) glass, which can be set to have a white and cloudy appearance, or to be mostly clear (although still slightly cloudy). While the ride is idle, and while it is extending out of the building, the glass remains cloudy.

As you are extended out of the building, you cannot see out of the cube, and they play sound effects to make it sound like the cube is suffering from mechanical problems. Several loud bangs and rumbles are played and finally the cube stops moving and, synchronised with some sharp problematic sound effects, the glass immediately clears on all five glazed sizes of the cube.

Since photography is not allowed within the cube, the theatricals are paused briefly while groups of people are able to line up at the far end of The Edge to have a digital photo taken of them with Melbourne's skyline in the background. Everyone else within the cube must bunch up at the rear of the cube to avoid being in someone else's picture.

Following the photography, there's a few minutes to appreciate the view before the ride continues with its dramatic presentation of a broken machine, with the windows flashing between cloudy and clear and dramatic sound effects possibly representing steam valves opening rapidly, high voltage electrical short circuits, and other various buzzing and clicking noises.

Eventually the glass is clouded completely, with each face of the cube being cleared separately for a few moments each, and finally after fading the glass between clear and cloudy a few times the cube retracts back into the building.

At the end of the day, the best thing was actually spending some time with my Dad. After visiting the Skydeck, we went out for a few beers on Southbank.