The competition winning design delivers a first-of-its-kind integrated health, education and research precinct connecting The University of Sydney with the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. The Sydney Biomedical Accelerator (SBA) will set an Australian benchmark for the integration of world-leading biomedical science with clinical research and innovation.

Connectivity is at the heart of the design, focused around a north facing seven-storey circulation spine called the ‘Connector’. The south facing facade creates a clear and simple sculptural form acknowledging the historic campus setting. Bold forms float above, alluding to both the scientific investigation within and an indigenous narrative embedded in the sculptural sunscreens.

SBA will house a range of education and laboratory research facilities, specialist core laboratories and technical support spaces, bringing together multidisciplinary teams and integrating fundamental research at the molecular and cellular level with patient-centred research and health outcomes.

In association with HDR.

Reaching practical completion in April 2025, the Aikenhead Centre for Medical Discovery (ACMD) development is a translational biomedical research and training hub, uniquely embedded within the St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne Campus, uniting eight institutions and affiliate research and industry partners.

Denton Corker Marshall was appointed Principal Consultant for ACMD including specialist laboratory planning to initially deliver the Feasibility Study leading to the submission of the Business Case to Government and associated stakeholders.

ACMD is a landmark building designed to attract and retain biomedical expertise in Victoria. It also acts as a gateway to central Melbourne, the St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne Campus and Melbourne Biomedical Precinct.

The ACMD development features:

• state-of-the-art laboratories with shared access to platform technologies;
• workshop and biofabrication facilities;
• start-up and industry spaces; and
• education and conference facilities.

In association with L2D.

The library will form the centrepiece of a new campus design for Jiujiang University.

The ground plane of the library is defined by large public engagement and events spaces, including a large, timber lined auditorium, lounges for breakout meetings and smaller gatherings, display of local cultural artefacts and dedicated space for book launches and events. These spaces spill out through transparent glazed facades onto large external terraces and plazas, with views over the surrounding plazas and hillside landscapes.

A large internal timber-lined amphitheatre and atrium connects students, academics, and the public together over three levels in an expansive, daylit space, forming a variety of spaces for students to study informally in groups or individually. Beside the atrium, more traditional and quieter spaces including reading rooms, book stacks, study areas and administration open onto a series of landscaped courtyards, providing views over the campus and another alternative for outdoor collaboration and study.

The Innovation in Technology and Science (ITS) refurbishment project was established to meet Deakin University’s immediate spatial needs for teaching and research in a contemporary and safe environment for staff and students.

The refurbishment includes teaching and research laboratories for students of Life and Environmental Sciences, a series of chemistry labs for the Institute for Frontier Materials, and various computer, VR and robotics labs for Deakin’s School of IT.

The project was delivered in four distinct stages, and constructed by two different contractors, at times with overlapping timeframes.

Our extensive experience working on education projects with a variety of specialist needs has led our practice to have a thorough understanding of efficient planning, space optimisation and innovation. To meet contemporary teaching and learning practices, we implemented a dynamic FF&E solution to empower teachers and students to work and learn in their own particular way. We provided flexible, reconfigurable settings, embedded ‘plug and play’ technology supporting ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD), along with ergonomic solutions such as height adjustable desks for workplace wellness.

The Huashang College Library Complex has 34,000m² in a forward-thinking architectural vision tailored to the diverse needs of one of China’s fastest-growing private universities. Designed in close collaboration with the client it is a testament to innovative design that balances architectural value with the client’s aspirations.

The building is articulated through three distinctive stacked volumes, each serving a unique purpose: a library; administration workplace; and short-term accommodation for university staff and visitors.

The university library is envisioned as a dynamic hub of learning and community engagement fostering spontaneous learning exchanges and leisure reading, with informal reading and learning areas. Key features include a large auditorium lecture hall and two medium-sized lecture halls, offering flexible, multifunctional spaces.

The workplace floors are designed with adaptability and versatility in mind, catering to the needs of library administration while also offering potential leasing opportunities. The accommodation facilities are arranged with 26 standard rooms per floor equipped with a balcony, offering guests a private outdoor space to connect with nature. This design prioritises guests’ well-being, creating a serene and comfortable stay experience.

The facade of the Huashang College Library Complex integrates traditional elements with contemporary design, drawing inspiration from the Xin Hui campus’s inherent material and colour palette. The ordered grid facade brings clarity and structure, ensuring a timeless architectural language. Balconies of varying depths are integrated within this grid, adding functional spaces, layers of visual intrigue, and facade shading.

An innovative design for labs-to-rent, a new topology providing laboratory ready commercial space for the bio-tech research market. It included a fully serviced space for small start-ups along with highly flexible space for tenants of all sizes.

The design provides the highest level of efficiency with single, tenant floors having efficiencies of 90% and multi-tenant floors 85 – 88% housed within 27,180m² GFA.

The 5, 7 and 11-storey wings provide flexible contemporary research environments with central hubs providing social spaces with biophilic design, while a structural grid of 10.2 x 6.8 metres accommodates a 3.4 metre lab module.

The project creates a generous, vibrant, muti-connected public realm with laneways and gardens totalling 26% of the site area.

The scheme was prepared in a shortlisted Design Excellence Competition.

In association with L2D.

This significant new building sits on a raised platform that creates a unifying landscaped plaza with a variety of entry levels to the surrounding buildings. Engineering Laboratories (13,000m2) are spread across 11 storeys with faculty administration offices and a retail component activating the ground floor.

A prominent spiral stair connects the building floors and creates a compelling informal common space in the form of a series of amphitheatres. This feature is articulated on the façade, creating a unique and individual architectural expression. External shade fins and solid panels are used to manage solar exposure and optimise daylighting into the internal spaces, creating shade, glare control and orchestrated views to the campus.

A major new addition to a dense university campus in Shanghai, this new building will create a central campus focus. The scheme groups together three components of learning and teaching, lecture theatres, and a sports halls into a singular facility – an 11-storey tower accommodating 11,000 students with 150 learning and teaching spaces and informal learning spaces grouped around a full height atrium; a four storey buildings with 21 lecture theatres ranging from 150 to 450 seats each; and a campus hall that can be used in a seated arrangement for 3,500 or multiple basketball courts; basement sports facilities include an Olympic swimming pool, 8 badminton courts and 10 table tennis courts.

These three major components are grouped together with a large, raised green-roof canopy 4 levels above the ground plane, unifying the complex into a singular expression. An elegant, timeless facade becomes more expressive at the ground plane, with the three building components are separated by semi-open plaza and laneway spaces.

The new Binus Edupark School campus is the first public facility provided for the Pearl of Java, a new township of 500 hectares in Semarang, Indonesia.

Located close to the ocean, the campus buildings are designed as a series of shell-like forms with a secondary skin of red terracotta breeze block walls, and roofs partially planted with coastal vegetation. The combination of openable windows and a secondary skin means that on cool and breezy days the windows can be opened instead of using air-conditioning full time. In addition, the terracotta breeze blocks protect the interior spaces from strong offshore winds.

The new school provides early childhood to high school education and by 2024, Binus University will also be established. The campus will eventually be surrounded by coastal gardens to provide shade and encourage birds and other wildlife back to the coastal area.

The University of Wollongong’s new facility for molecular and life sciences is an $80 million collaborative research facility equipped with world-leading technologies, centred around $25 million microscopy equipment, including Titan Krios and Talos Arctica cryo-electron microscopes (Cryo-EM) and super-resolution optical microscopes.  The Centre is dedicated to researching life at a molecular level, helping to solve some of the biggest health challenges facing the world.

The Cryo-EM microscope’s extreme sensitivity to electromagnetic interference required separation from services and lifts, along with non-ferrous construction.

The design response creates two blocks: a services and lift block clad in charcoal aluminium, and a glazed laboratory wing.  They are connected via a transparent link containing breakout, meeting spaces and ‘science-on-display’, promoting interaction.  Informal outdoor learning extends the interaction into the landscape.

In association with Jacobs.

The Biomedical Learning + Teaching Building is a 11,360m² facility at Monash University’s Clayton campus, providing a state of the art learning environment for students in biomedical science.

The new building incorporates an innovative pedagogical solution in four Flexi Labs.  The ‘L’ shaped labs wrap around a central glazed satellite prep area providing smaller scaled, more personable lab space for cohorts of 60, 120 or interlinked space for up to 240 students, visually connected as one.  This enables teaching and learning of multiple subjects concurrently and independently in a uniquely Monash solution.

The facility also includes a 1,200m² informal Learning Hub accommodating 440 students.  With an average of 90 informal learning seats per floor, the Hub provides spaces for quiet, self-directed learning as well as, larger, more active group settings.

In association with Arina.

Denton Corker Marshall was appointed by Melbourne Grammar School to undertake full architectural and interior design services for the School’s new Science + Technology Hub.

The School’s brief was to create a unique science and technology hub – the first of its kind in Australia.  Our extensive involvement in ground-breaking medical research centres including Walter + Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research and Hunter Medical Research Institute has enabled us to achieve an exemplar in collaborative teaching laboratories and design technology learning spaces.

The centre, known as The Geoff Handbury Science + Technology Hub, is an innovative piece of architecture in both performance and appearance.  Aesthetically, it is a singular, clear and simple structural form, sympathetic to the campus heritage.

Internally, the building supports the scientific and technology driven investigations carried out by the students, and encourages creativity, learning and social interaction.

On a prominent urban site, the new building creates a gateway to the University’s revitalised city campus.

Fourteen levels, plus four below ground, accommodate state-of-the-art lecture rooms, academic offices, seminar rooms, teaching and research laboratories, student union, food and recreation areas, with bicycle and carparking.  Educational spaces are arranged around a central atrium or crevasse creating a variety of innovative pedagogy and collaborative environments.

Four tilted and skewed plates envelope the building’s volume.  The plates are made of aluminium sheets perforated in a pattern derived from the binary code for ‘University of Technology Sydney Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology’.  ‘Gills’ creased into the surface of each plate punctuate the façade, visually reinforcing the sense of plate as skin and symbolically allowing the building to breathe.

A four level building in a bushland setting for the Hunter Medical Research Institute, the project is a unique joint venture between Hunter New England Health, the University of Newcastle and the Hunter community near Newcastle, New South Wales.

The building provides a world class medical research amenity that fosters and enables research collaboration between multidisciplinary teams, across institutions and geographic sites, and coordinates research activity and resource distribution for the Hunter region, with close links to the local community.

The facility is designed to accommodate five different research divisions: Viruses, Immunity, Vaccines and Asthma (VIVA); Pregnancy and Reproduction; Information Based Medicine; Public Health and an upcoming research program.

In association with S2F (Sinclair Knight Merz).

The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute is at the forefront of international medical research.  A new building and renovation of an existing building doubles the Institute’s size and creates a distinctive landmark.

Carrying a vibrant, forward-looking imagery for the whole complex, the new building is conceived as a series of horizontally stacked metal boxes.  Each is a satin silver envelope brought to life with glazing shaded by banks of screening louvres with randomly placed downturned tab edges.

The older building is, in part, lightly wrapped in a new polished aluminium skin fusing it to the new.

The seven levels of each building link directly in a new atrium.  It offers visual connection between levels and with views of the working laboratories from glazed lifts, enhances a sense of community within the workspace.

In association with S2F (Sinclair Knight Merz).

Denton Corker Marshall was engaged as Design Architect for the 311-bed campus-style King Hamad University Hospital. Equipped with state-of-the-art medical technology, the 66,000m² hospital accommodates nine internal wards and nine digitalised operating theatres to provide general, accident and emergency services.

The hospital is divided into three wings, over four levels. Each wing is connected via glazed link bridges to form a unified design. A series of landscaped berms partially conceals the lower floor and reduces the overall scale of the building.

The facility includes a helipad capable of landing military Blackhawk helicopters for emergency relief.

In association with Australian Hospital Design Group.

When Monash University acquired a former institute of technology, Denton Corker Marshall’s masterplan for the Caulfield campus created a central open space – a university green – around which faculty buildings are concentrated.

Denton Corker Marshall completed three of these buildings including, the studios and teaching facilities for the Faculties of Art + Design and Applied Arts.

Sited on one of Melbourne’s busiest suburban roads, the building turns inwards to an internal courtyard.  Its outer wall undulates along the road and is clad with a metal skin, held up by a series of yellow sticks.  Viewed at speed along the highway, the image of the campus is defined by the dynamic silver wavy wall.  Its anodised aluminium shingles produce a dramatic sculptural impact.

Inside, facilities include studios for industrial and graphic design, multimedia studios, teaching laboratories, gold and silver-smithing studios, lecture theatre and gallery spaces accessed from an open two-storey spine.

A new Computer Science + General Teaching Building at Monash University’s Caulfield campus.

The facility houses the Computing School, general teaching areas, student union facilities and two multi-purpose lecture theatres.

The building features aluminium-clad forms above a ceramic tile-clad, concrete-framed base.  The pattern of yellow stick columns to the colonnade sets a rhythm along the face of the building and a simple black concrete frame creates a three dimensional grid.  The lecture theatres burst out of the grid but appear to be held down by the frame.

Internally, the teaching spaces are ordered around a central spine.  The black tiled wall along one side of the space is counterpoint to the stepped white wall of the teaching spaces.  The sloping faces and the theatre forms extend into the foyer, and within theatres, the basic white internal shell is wrapped at the stage end with a dark grey perforated metal acoustic sheath.

Our design for a comprehensive refurbishment of a 25-year-old University library fundamentally reshapes the main entry level to create a fresh, calm, and uplifting environment for students to study in groups and individually. An existing courtyard is be transformed into a new light filled atrium, connecting all levels of the library. It also creates a focus for students for informal study around a large timber amphitheatre and stair in the centre of the space with pockets of group study spaces with built-in bench seats and sofas, and flexible tables and chairs.

Externally, the aged building is given a complete refresh, removing a large space-frame steel roof, and replacing it with an elegant portal structure framing the main building and entrance steps. New, high-performance glazing replaces older, reflective glass and create a more transparent and sustainable building to serve the University for decades to come.

Denton Corker Marshall was shortlisted in an international design competition for the Jiujiang University Hospital. The design for the 35,200m² teaching hospital incorporates a 160-bed inpatient wing, enhanced by specialised departments for outpatient dental care and an ICU dedicated to cardiac and neurovascular conditions, accommodation in a seven-storey building.

Our design approach supports rigorous and highly functional hospital planning within a balanced and clear composition of simple curved forms, strongly relating to a key corner intersection in the city. A clean, curved block defines the facade, floating above an active, transparent ground plane.

Integral to the facade’s identity is a meticulously composed pattern of strip windows punctuating the building’s envelope. This rhythmic fenestration is instrumental in allowing daylight, promoting natural ventilation, and establishing a human scale within the urban landscape.

In association with CCIHC Engineering Technology Group.

BatTRI Hub 2.0 delivers an advanced battery fabrication, testing and diagnosis facility that expands the capabilities of the Deakin University’s Geelong Waurn Ponds battery engineering facility, BatTRI Hub 1.0.

Designed to all relevant Deakin University Design Standards, BatTRI Hub 2.0 serves a critical role in the translation of research into pre-commercial scale prototyping, testing and innovation services.

It is designed as a dry room constructed as a ‘box within a box’, in a refurbished warehouse shell close to Deakin University’s Burwood campus.

The facility was delivered to high technical specifications, including a semi-automated pilot production line comprised of three separate spaces – coding, pressing and assembly – as well as equipment operating in a temperature controlled dry room atmosphere.

Consultants were coordinated to ensure regulatory and statutory compliance with all relevant design, environmental, health and safety standards including hazardous materials and chemicals storage. Services infrastructure is designed to ensure sufficient power supply for production demand. It includes open plan office space adjacent and visually connected to the laboratory space.

In association with L2D.

The new Binus School campus is the first public facility provided for the Pearl of Java, a new township of 500 hectares in Semarang, Indonesia.

Located close to the ocean, the campus buildings are designed as a series of shell-like forms with a secondary skin of red terracotta breeze block walls, and roofs partially planted with coastal vegetation. The combination of openable windows and a secondary skin means that on cool and breezy days the windows can be opened instead of using air-conditioning full time. In addition, the terracotta breeze blocks protect the interior spaces from strong offshore winds.

The new school provides early childhood to high school education and Binus University. The campus will be surrounded by coastal gardens to provide shade and encourage birds and other wildlife back to the coastal area.

The Health Innovation Centre Version 1 at Victoria University’s Footscray Park Campus was prepared as a Public Private Process (PPP) bid with Plenary Group. It combines the 16,000m² College of Health and Biomedicine with a 14,000m² private hospital and 7,000m² medical suites/commercial space to create a centre of excellence, focusing on new models of clinical care and preventative health. Together with supporting retail and services the development totals 37,000m² GFA and is housed in a prominent 16-storey tower.

Working closely with health planning experts, Silver Thomas Hanley, the complex arrangement of university facilities with private medical facilities were closely co-ordinated.

The main entrance off Ballarat Road contains the lobby and café housed in an external campus room connected to the lower Campus High Street. On the floors above, nine different University departments are accommodated. This includes sixteen PC2 labs for Anatomy, Medical Sciences, Food and Nutrition, each for a cohort of 36 – 40 students, along with a PC2 Certifiable Research Facility, inclusive of Tissue and Biobank facilities.

The Health Innovation Centre highlights connectivity with a footbridge link to the new Footscray Hospital opposite the site and is designed to make a significant contribution to campus quality, amenity and character.

In association with Silver Thomas Hanley.