A six-level skin cancer treatment and research centre will be built on Melbourne’s St Kilda Road under plans submitted to the City of Melbourne by Alfred Health.
The Victorian Melanoma and Clinical Trials Centre will sit on the western edge of The Alfred Hospital at 545 St Kilda Road and is envisioned as a “world-class facility” for clinical research and the early detection and prevention of skin cancers including melanoma.
Lyons is the architect for the facility, alongside landscape architecture practice Rush Wright Associates. In planning documents, Lyons notes that the architectural brief called for an “iconic” building that would attract the best researchers, as well as for “spaces and gardens that respond to the humanist need for support and well-being for patients and visitors.”
The Victorian Melanoma and Clinical Trials Centre by Lyons, with landscape architecture by Rush Wright Associates.
The design is characterized by a distinctive façade, which is based on the idea of layers of skin and provides a “veil” to the building, filtering light to create a “soft” environment internally.
A ground plane defined by gardens and “well-being areas” has similarly been designed for a “supportive, calming, community-based experience.”
The building’s first three levels from the ground floor will be dedicated to patient care – with a well-being centre and concierge functions on the ground floor, clinical spaces on the first floor and day therapy chairs on the second floor.
Above this, the fourth and fifth floors will be occupied by research and workspace for staff and clinicians.
The architects note that all levels with have floor-to-floor heights that will allow future flexibility for alternative health related programs. Funding for the project is being provided by the Victorian and federal governments, The Alfred Foundation and Monash University.
If approved, the facility is expected to be operational by 2024.
