Melbourne’s first wellness-enabled lifestyle apartments at the Melbourne Square precinct recently made a spectacular entry into the local multi-residential development market.

Having achieved the topping out milestone at the project’s first two towers, developer OSK Property unveiled Melbourne’s first wellness-enabled lifestyle apartments featuring modern technology to create healthier interiors.

The city’s largest new precinct under development, Southbank’s Melbourne Square is now a prominent landmark on the skyline, with its first two towers topping out at 236.7 metres and 184.3 metres respectively after three years of construction by Multiplex. Simultaneously, the wellness apartments featuring interiors by Carr Design are getting their finishing touches, as is the village-style shopping centre.

An integrated wellness ecosystem by Delos controls the quality of air, water and light within the luxury apartments. Key highlights of this wellness technology include air quality sensors and high-end HEPA air filtration systems that detect and remove impurities such as pollen, dust and smoke, water purifiers that reduce levels of chlorine, heavy metals and particulates, and smart lighting that mimics daylight patterns to improve daytime performance and sleep cycles.

Allergy sufferers and asthmatics will particularly benefit from Delos’ technology, which is part of the promise to deliver a precinct that responds to people’s needs. Residents will gain across the wellness spectrum with vitality provided by extensive amenity incorporating multiple pools, gyms, golf simulator and yoga space; social connection through the precinct’s large public park, dining rooms and resident lounges; and health through the curated village-style food precinct including Woolworths.

Melbourne Square sales and marketing director Scott Jessop said the apartments would be the first in Victoria to incorporate world-first wellness technology that aims to make spaces healthier places to live.

“Precincts like Melbourne Square can play a role in the health of our communities, providing connection opportunities and important amenity. Buildings are also a critical tool in health and wellbeing, as Delos’ 10 years of scientific research has found.

“To be able to offer apartments fitted with science-backed technology that improves the internal environment is a game-changer that fits with our vision to create an integrated wellness precinct here.”

Residents whose apartments were completed before the Delos technology was made available, will have the option of a retrofit.

The apartments are designed to help occupants cope with environmental challenges such as asthma, allergies to dust, pollen, pollution and even bushfire smoke, Delos general manager Anthony Scarff observed.

“Given we now spend more than 90 per cent of our time indoors, it is vital that we explore new ways to engineer our indoor environments so they become ecosystems for improving physical and mental health. We firmly believe the latest inclusions at Melbourne Square make this development a leader in the movement towards wellness in apartment living.”

Carr Design’s interiors for the wellness apartments reflect the external pleating design created by COX Architecture.

Carr Design’s director of architecture, Chris McCue said the interiors encouraged personalisation while allowing the precinct’s 360-degree views to take centre-stage.

“When we design for luxury we think beyond a floor plan or materials palette and use the interiors to create mood and emotion. These spaces elicit a feeling of calm and escape atop the city below,” McCue says.

The first stage of the Melbourne Square precinct is heading towards completion with several stores within the urban shopping village including Woolworths to open ahead of Christmas.

According to CBRE residential director Andrew Leoncelli, the COVID-19 pandemic is making many people reconsider their current living arrangements after spending a significant amount of time at home. This is a welcome development for Melbourne Square, which recently unveiled its last remaining apartments.

“There are still buyers out there and lockdown has created pent up demand as people look to take advantage of the market conditions and low interest rates to move,” Leoncelli says.

“Never has there been a better time to buy in Melbourne and we are finding people are doing exactly that, particularly since the government opened up inspections again. Many people are putting larger homes on the market and looking at apartments.”