Head 20 minutes due south of Adelaide CBD towards the beaches and you’ll pass a large hospital and university on the left. The first thing the driver will notice though is a stand out, other age building, all glass and timbers, fronting out to the main road and the sea.

The real stand out though lies inside, in the make up of the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer, and the fostering of something new in the fight against a scourge of this century and others.

And like a lot of innovations, it begins with a group of colleagues and a cup of coffee...

Like many good ideas, it was a long time in the making.

Ten years to be exact, from vision to completion, but the brief to come up with an iconic building to house, and showcase, Australia’s first integrated cancer care and research facility, is promising to be more than worth the wait.

The Northern facade. Images: Steve Rendoulis Photography

Stunning at a glance, four storeys tall with a curved glass and copper coloured aluminium facade, it’s in the use of space at the Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer (FCIC) in suburban Adelaide, that the possibilities really kick in.

Informality is everywhere, public places light and uncluttered, but the real intrigue is upstairs, where a coterie of researchers, academics and more will sit down daily across a coffee table and, quite literally, set about finding a cure for cancer.

Which is something of a stereotyping conundrum... researchers, though historically left alone in their daily endeavours, are largely outgoing types and keen to talk about their work, says FCIC Professor Ross McKinnon.

And thus, the change afoot at Flinders.

“My favourite parts of the new building are the open plan areas on levels three and four,” says the professor. “There’s a break out area at the end. Where there’s an informal space people can head to, they will do. It’s where the best ideas come from.”

Openness is all here and the FCIC has been put together with the idea of everyone mixing in.

“We’re taking integration to another level. Medical staff now see the people they are treating around the building in general, there’s a continual public interface,” says Ross McKinnon.

The plan is simple. Through its iconic design the FCIC hopes to become a byword for first rate grants and first rate staff. It’s all about cancer prevention, early intervention and survivorship here - around half of all cancers can be dealt with if they’re found early enough says the FCIC. And having a wondrous, state of the art facility will do no harm in attracting the money to feed the ideal. A PR, marketing and fund raising hit, all in one.

“We want to find new techniques to detect cancer earlier, whether improving uptake in bowel screening or behavioral aspects to cancer, looking at what drives peoples choices and habits,” says Professor McKinnon.

In which vein he’d be happy to let his researchers chat ad infinitum, caffeine fuelled and enthused by the context and company. But should the mocha or cappuccino run dry, the exit is not to the dingy, rear of the hospital, and mind, billets of old.

Transparency and visibility rule – back to the desk post coffee means a workbench within a vast open plan laboratory, all light and white, or a seat in an adjoining open work area where PhD students can hot desk and hi-five with senior medical staff should the mood take them.

“A lot of the oncologists weren’t visible before,” says Ross McKinnon. “The new work area breaks down all the hierarchical barriers, you don’t have to make an appointment as you’re often seeing them every day. You don’t see a lot of open planning, this takes it to another level.”

Don’t be fooled by the apparent casualness of it all, is the subtext. Detail is everywhere and much sharpened over time.

It all kicked off pre millennium when national architects Woodhead were working on complementary projects at the Flinders Medical Centre just metres away. Ideas were thrown around and shared with the university and hospital foundation. Current Woodhead CEO, Angelo Di Marco, was on board from the start and while the idea and intent was there for the FCIC, the money wasn’t.

Nor was the initial design.

“It was all was about making a lot out of very little,” says Angelo. “The site was fraught with problems, backing onto an ambulance ramp didn’t aid the new plans, a car park needed shifting and the hospital helipad needed rehousing.”

Head inside today and the integration is an experience in itself, the sole staircase, wide and timber, snaking up and around the four floors, a navigation aid and tour of almost everything the centre has to offer.

There’s a giant glass meeting room slap bang in the centre of the upper floors and, downstairs, a T-bar franchise with all profits given over to the FCIC. A lecture hall next door doubles as a yoga suite. Wellness facilities will soon be on the menu too.

Colours count – the timber seeps a healing effect, white walls neutral but calming, subtle graphic design everywhere, amalgams of spots dotted around representing cancer cells and the fight all are united against.

The Infusion Suite (pictured left) – cancer’s nemesis and the battleground of bravery and anguish for 1,200 unique patients each month – is a layer of complexity masked by simplicity. Individual bays can be reshaped for need or simply for change’s sake – it can be a long six or seven hours here at a stretch and the same again a day or two later.

There’s a touch of the sci-fi even here and, 2001: A Space Odyssey, in its look and feel – a nice synchronicity too, 2001 was the year the then projected $10M project really got going.

Today it stands finished, just shy of 6,000 square metres and at a cost of $29M all told. Official and indigenous welcome ceremonies marked its opening in April this year – a decorative, two metre high Indigenous shield, built by local artist Karl Telfer stands in front of the atrium – but the work is just now really fitting its mould and shaping up.

Moving the helipad from atop the car park across the road for example was a master stroke of pragmatism – the previous journey from landing to theatre previously involved a complex and long winded shuttle across much of the hospital. Now, it’s land on the FCIC roof, down one level in a lift, along a corridor and you’re where you need to be.

It’s not only efficient but almost un-noticed too, sound and vibration stabilisers unsettling neither patient nor research. You might hear it occasionally says Professor McKinnon but you won’t feel a thing. Detail as ever.

“Another unseen and unexpected variance came indirectly, with the implementation of a change management process,” recounts Angel Di Marco.

Hot desking for consultants, haematologists, psychologists and all manner of clinicians amid an open plan workplace was questioned at first but the Flinders medical world is now firmly wedded to contemporary business in outlook and practice. Not an easy win but rooted in a design that works and looks good – the practical outcome always.

BIM model sections below

Architecture & Design Team

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