'Concrete Cancer'

After four long years of tender care from the hands of an army of builders, the Hocken/Richardson building has finally reached the end of a $1.4 million makeover. 
The official reason given for the 27-year-old building’s facelift is that it had been suffering a bout of “concrete cancer.” Because the interface between the building’s concrete flesh and steel bones was not properly sealed when it was first built, its bones had been expanding with rust for some years, splitting fist-sized chunks of flesh from its outer walls, much to the peril of Otago’s law students. Now that the last of the work is complete, the Richardson looks to remain concretely stable for years to come.

The scaffolding on the Richardson Building is not a permanent feature! After more than four years of painstaking work, the building's "concrete cancer" has been completely cured. Check out the real face of Richardson below.