Clarity, calm, and connection in a world-class cancer facility
The Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC) brings research, education, and cancer care together in one of Australia’s most advanced health facilities. Located in Melbourne’s biomedical precinct and home to the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, the $1 billion site is purpose-built to support world-leading services—and the people behind them.
Our role was to develop the wayfinding strategy and signage design. With over 130,000 square metres across 13 levels, the navigation experience had to work for patients, families, researchers, clinicians, students, and staff. Many visitors return again and again, sometimes for years. Creating a system that feels clear, calm, and familiar was a core part of the brief.
Project
Victorian Comprehensive Cancer Centre (VCCC)
Client
Plenary Health
Collaborators
Designinc
Studio STH
McBride Charles Ryan
Location
Size
Project Build Cost
Focus
Wayfinding
User Experience
Experiential Design
We led multiple workshops with users at every level—patients, family members, front-of-house staff, clinicians, and facilities managers—to understand how different groups move through the space, and how they feel while doing it. The final strategy focused on confidence, clarity, and comfort. We designed it to reduce mental effort and create a sense of ease, especially for those arriving under stress.
This project also shows what happens when wayfinding is integrated from the start. Working with DesignInc, Silver Thomas Hanley, and McBride Charles Ryan in early design phases, we sketched, tested, and refined key interventions together. Spatial thresholds were clarified. Sightlines and flow were improved. Entry and transition points were designed with people in mind, not just form.
User experience was particularly important at the carpark entry, where many patients begin their visit. This arrival sequence was given extra attention—from illustrated walls that soften the carpark experience to lift lobbies that feel brighter and more welcoming than what people usually expect underground.
Inside the building, the architecture is bold, layered, and expressive. Our design needed to complement it without adding noise. We developed a wayfinding and graphics system that blends into the interior language, providing quiet cues that help people move naturally. Colours were drawn from the palette already used in the fitout, with visual contrast carefully tuned for accessibility. Environmental graphics support movement from space to space, helping people stay oriented while staying relaxed.
Every decision—from naming and sign placement to typeface, material, and finish—was made with the user in mind. In a place where people are often dealing with uncertainty, it’s not just about knowing where to go. It’s about feeling looked after along the way.
