Vitality Village is a $25 million development, led by community services organisation ComLink which aims to transform health and wellbeing services on the Sunshine Coast, by sharing knowledge, tackling challenges, and building a community of best practice through multi-sectoral collaboration.

Evoke Projects managed the creative design of Vitality Village to foster collaboration, creativity, and collective impact throughout the five storey, 4700 m2 building which is located in the heart of the health precinct at Birtinya.

The communal areas throughout Vitality Village have been designed as spaces that will encourage businesses to socialise and interact with each other. The design incorporates a variety of dedicated areas catering to different styles, sizes and types of meetings and collaboration. Multifunction rooms provide flexible spaces that can cater to larger groups of people for training sessions, workshops, and seminars. Private meeting rooms are provided for more formal types of meetings with room booking systems and integrated AV, while the Theatre and Brainstorm zones are for more casual spaces for presentations and to pitch new ideas. The mezzanine consists of a variety of seating styles to encourage those impromptu style catchups along with acoustic booths for meetings that do not necessarily need to be done in a closed-door environment.

The mezzanine area on level 2 will really be the heart of the Vitality Village precinct and a place that brings people together and gets them interacting. The look and feel will create a warm and welcoming environment to attract tenants to this space. Natural materials and plant life within the built environment connect us to nature and can subconsciously affect our wellbeing, so these types of features throughout the space have a positive impact on the overall experience and journey throughout the Vitality Village.

Evoke believes that designers have the ability to create environments that can improve the overall health and wellbeing of those that both occupy and visit a space. Health and Wellbeing is really the centre focus of the new Vitality Village precinct so this was an important concept to carry through in all aspects of the design – not only through the physical environment (like the things we can see and touch) but through the behavioural and emotional aspects too. The designers needed to consider how the environment represented wellbeing and what impact the design would have on making tenants feel comfortable to collaborate and be open to sharing their ideas.

Apart from social and collaborative spaces it was important to provide facilities that support occupant’s mental health and wellbeing. This is experienced through spaces for prayer, meditation, and reflection along with flexible rooms that can be used for yoga, pilates, and exercise groups. Kitchen facilities can be used for nutritional classes and the theatre can be utilised for Lunch and Learns to further educate on everything Health and Wellbeing.

As the Vitality Village was a new development, Evoke commenced the internal fitout whilst the basebuild works were still under construction. Staging of the works was crucial to meet certain milestones and project deadlines as not all areas of the building where yet accessible for fitout works to commence.

As we were completing fitout works to multiple communal areas of the building along with individual tenancy fitouts this allowed for works to continue with minimal delays and downtime.

Taking sustainability into consideration, natural timbers and plants were used throughout the design. Biophilic elements were also used to incorporate elements of wellness into the design and support occupant wellbeing.

Laminex product was used for all cabinetry and joinery. Laminex employ a range of processes along with the latest technology to ensure they reduce their carbon footprint such as timber certifications, Global GreenTag certified products, low emission products and ISO 14001 certification.