Building Information

South Australia’s independent, not-for-profit health and medical research institute is headquartered in the distinctive SAHMRI building in the heart of Adelaide BioMed City.

The building was designed by Adelaide-based architectural firm Woods Bagot. It’s signature dia-grid façade, that has earned the building the nickname ‘The Cheesegrater’, was in fact inspired by the skin of a pinecone.

SAHMRI consists of seven floors above street level and three floors below. A concrete bunker in the building’s basement houses South Australia’s only cyclotron, producing radiopharmaceuticals for diagnosis, treatment and research every day of the year.

The SAHMRI facility provides nine fully-flexible wet and dry laboratory modules enabling researchers to move seamlessly between state-of-the-art laboratories and open plan workspaces. Its co-location with the Royal Adelaide Hospital promotes increasing collaboration with the health system, facilitating bench-to-bedside research to deliver health improvements with impact.

The building’s signature windows (more than 6000 of them!), ample space and interconnecting spiral staircase encourage collaboration and speak to SAHMRI’s mission to interact with the community it serves – inviting people to ask questions about our research and tell us where there is the greatest need for health improvements.

Want to know more about the design of the SAHMRI Building? Visit the Woods Bagot website for further information.

Ecological Sustainable Development (ESD)

The SAHMRI building responds to its surrounding environmental conditions to ensure a comfortable internal working environment and to minimise the use of energy, and as a result has earned a gold rating for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED).