Australian developers are increasingly embedding resort-style wellness features and smart technology into residential buildings as future-focused design reshapes how Aussies live.
From resort-style pools, spas, yoga spaces, cinemas, pet amentiies to EV charging and advancing technology, developers aim to promote health, social connection and convenience for residents.
Coronation Property’s Mason & Main Merrylands development is one example, featuring a range of amenities from its outdoor pool and terrace, gym with technogym equipment and sauna, while also offering a dining, working and entertaining areas, cinema and EV charging and car share services.
Sydneysider Thomas Pospieszny has been renting at Mason & Main for over two years and says the amenities at the development contribute to his high-quality lifestyle living in an apartment.
“Level two is our common area, so it starts with the massive lounge rooms with beautiful furniture, private dining rooms you can hire for hosting your parties, playroom, cinema co-working spaces with private offices, meeting rooms and boardrooms,” he said.
“We have a library, sauna, massive gym, swimming pool, and then we have three rooftops with different levels of activities and leisure of them has got a pickleball court.
Thomas Pospieszny has been renting at Maison & Maine for two years and enjoys the lifestyle that the amenities in his building provides. Picture Thomas Lisson
“The activities have improved even better to what it was initially, the guys are really working hard on keeping us entertained and keeping us engaged.”
Many developers are increasingly updating these wellness inclusions for community-focused projects – Billbergia Development Director Saul Moran said their developments, such as Concord Central, were focusing on shared green spaces and parklands for residents to connect.
Where other developments, like Wentworth Point, place emphasis on wellness features.
“We’re doing what we call a residents pavilion, that has a real wellness area there’s a sauna, spa, gymnasium, pools, and other facilities that really start to bring people together and really start to look at that holistic lifestyle that encourages the physical activity, social interaction, and the self-sustainability of a master plan,” he said.
“For us, ultimately homes of the future are really based around high density living, but with amenities.
“So making sure we’re creating healthy, connected and sustainable communities, with the amenity, the wellness, but also the togetherness as well.”
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Billbergia’s Concord Central wellness features include sauna and spa
The yoga and gym space at Billbergia’s Concord Central
Billbergia Director Joseph Kinsella said wellness has become a “bigger and bigger” industry in recent years.
“I’d say probably one driver of that in the new generation coming through the millennials,” he said.
“The residents club is in almost all our developments now, the pool, the spa, and the sauna, in Castlereagh Place, we can take that and elevate it to the next level where we’re getting a commercial operator to professionally run that with ancillary services like massage, beauty, that is to available to the residents at any time that’s kind of elevating it to the next level.”
Another inclusion they are looking to introduce across projects is a more touchless technological experience, similar to Bluetooth-enabled car locking.
“That’s being able to walk up to your lobby entry door and your phone recognises the entry door and it opens automatically without you having to swipe a fob or a fingerprint or anything else,” Mr Kinsella said.
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Billbergia’s Concord Central Pavillion with amenities.
A golf simulator at Billbergias Chatswood Grand Residences
“Once you get into the lift, the same credential gets acknowledged and you can press your lift button – having that seamless and intuitive experience, we feel is something that needs to be brought into home living as well. So if you forget your keys, if you could forget anything, you still have access.”
Simon Kuestenmacher Co-Founder and Director of The Demographics Group said city centres are where the populations are often clustered and most likely to opt for unit living.
“That’s the pre-family formation stage of the life cycle, and since these young workers increasingly our knowledge workers, they are just predestined, so to speak, to be near the city centre,” he said.
“We’d hopefully see more options elsewhere in suburbia in smaller towns, because as Australia, you want to encourage people to downsize, to live near their ageing population and so forth, so we need a broader, wider property mix across the whole country.”
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