Virtual Working

"Northumberland and Durham Coalfield. Area, 460 square miles; length from north to south, 50 miles; breadth, 23 miles at widest part; thickness of workable coal, 46 feet; number of seams, 16 to 20; probable available quantity of coal, 2,867,307,000 tons. This old and important coalfield stretches over the greater portion of the counties of Northumberland and Durham. It extends from the River Coquet in the north to Staindrop in the south; and from Ponteland and Wolsingham in the west to the North Sea on the east." James Tonge (1906) 'The Principles and Practice of Coal Mining' quoted in 'Pitmatic' by Bill Griffiths

There is something about the scale of the coalfield and the fact that most of it is invisible, unknown to those on the surface that creates an analogy between coal mining and the work of the new college facility. Both, to a certain extent, are dealing with the virtual and the hidden - coal underground and computer signals along an optic cable or similar. There is also the geographic extent of the same coalfield (seams) with separate collieries mining down into it complementing the fact that the new building will represent distinct locations that are brought together by a commonality.

Otherwise the comparison becomes more about contrast = clean/dirty, dark/light, enclosed/spacious, etc.