Building our future

WEHI is embarking upon a dramatic new phase in its evolution. To mark the 90th anniversary of our founding, in 2006 the State Government and the Commonwealth Government each provided a $50 million capital works grant. Together with generous funding from The Atlantic Philanthropies, these grants will enable us to expand the Parkville building to nearly double its size and thereby grow our research programs to improve health outcomes.

An aerial shot taken over Parkville, looking south towards the Melbourne CBD with Port Phillip Bay beyond. In the foreground, the existing WEHI building is coloured pale blue. The area to host the new WEHI development, to the west or right hand side of the existing building, is coloured deep blue. Photograph by Czesia Markiewicz, WEHI Communications Department.

WEHI appointed Denton Corker Marshall and S2F to design our new facility. Our architects-in-association are each national leaders in their fields: Denton Corker Marshall in the development of major institutional and public buildings (Melbourne Museum and Australia's Beijing and Tokyo embassies); S2F in the creation of innovative laboratory designs. Atkinson Project Management has been appointed to manage the building project. Their successes include the Austin Repatriation and Mercy Hospital redevelopment, the Alfred Centre and the Royal Dental Hospital, Melbourne.

Keeping in Contact

It is vital that we keep the wider community informed about the development. So, this website will track the progress of our expansion project and keep our friends and supporters up-to-date with developments on the building site. And importantly, it will keep our neighbours on the RMH campus and University High School and in surrounding Parkville informed on construction issues that might temporarily affect on movements around the building area or might temporarily affect the local environment.

Please use the menu bar above (which will fill out over time) to keep abreast of current building alerts, to download editions of our "Building Medical Science" newsletter and to view a live webcam of the building progess

We are looking forward to receiving your feedback and any queries about the building process that you might have. Please make contact with us via email at bms@wehi.edu.au.

Progress at September 2008

The $150 million WEHI development project is making impressive progress. After nearly two years of intense planning, site works are commencing. Modifications to the structure of the car park ramps under the existing building are underway, work is underway expanding and relocating some of the current WEHI infrastructure services, and demolition works of existing buildings on the western expansion site are close to beginning.