Wellness & ESG
IDA Design Group applies the Global Wellness Institute's Build Well to Live Well framework across every project we undertake, from Sydney's coastline to Southeast Asia. A healthy building is a better building, and we design every project that way.
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Researchers attribute up to 80–90% of our health outcomes to our surrounding environments: the buildings we live in, work in, and pass through every day. Every one of those buildings affects the people inside it. At IDA, we design that effect on purpose, from the first sketch to the final detail.
"Wellness real estate is no longer the domain of one-off passion projects. It is increasingly the standard that serious developers, investors, and communities are designing to."
Build Well to Live Well: The Future, June 2025
Grounded in the Global Wellness Institute's six-dimension framework, we evaluate every design decision across physical, mental, social, civic, environmental, and economic lenses. All six carry equal weight in how we design.
A residential development in Cronulla's coastal suburb, delivered with our client Skymark and in partnership with environmental infrastructure specialists Ocean Protect, goes well beyond amenity-level sustainability. The development integrates operational stormwater treatment systems that capture plastic waste, vehicle tyre wear particles, sediment, and other pollutants at source, intercepting them before they enter the coastal waterway.
This is what the GWI Build Well to Live Well framework identifies as Principle 5: wellness embedded in infrastructure, not layered on as an amenity. The result is a development that actively improves its surrounding environment, a reportable ESG outcome for Skymark and a model for what responsible coastal development looks like.
Our mixed-use development in the Bringelly precinct of the Western Sydney Aerotropolis is one of the most ESG-intensive projects IDA has undertaken: a first-mover development where every design decision is governed by a rigorous stack of environmental, heritage, ecological, and social frameworks. Delivered in collaboration with Architecture AND and Arcadia Landscape Architecture for developer Taylor Smith Projects.
The site sits on Darug and Gundungurra Country, adjacent to the Thompsons Creek riparian corridor, a tributary of the Wianamatta (South Creek), known to Traditional Owners as 'the Mother Place'. Water, Country, and ecological continuity form the structural logic of the design.
A Design Excellence SSDA project in Castle Hill for 153 apartments and two café/restaurants, backing directly onto a bushland reserve and creek corridor on Darug Country. That relationship defines everything about how this building is designed, from its ground plane all the way to its rooftop.
"Country talks to you. You just need to listen." Paul Webb, Darug knowledge holder
Indigenous planting: bush tucker & medicinal species
Wayfinding & storytelling: vertical narrative through the building
Our first international project, a residential highrise in Cambodia, was designed directly to the Global Wellness Institute's Build Well to Live Well framework, introduced to us by our client as the guiding design brief. It represents IDA's capability to deliver wellness-driven architecture in a tropical climate, at residential scale, across international borders.
Building on more than two decades of Sydney practice, IDA is extending its work across South East Asia, partnering with developers on residential, hospitality and mixed-use projects in markets where wellness-led, ESG-aligned design is moving from discretionary to expected.
Sydney standards, regional fluency, and a director on every project.
IDA Design Group
We approach the region the way we approach Sydney: we read the context, work within international green building frameworks, and keep a director on the project from start to finish. Clients get international standards with the personal commitment of an independent studio.
IDA designs to the certification frameworks that ESG-conscious developers and their investors require. We assess every project against these standards from the first design stage.
The Asia-Pacific wellness real estate market is growing at 18.2% annually, the world's second-largest and accelerating. IDA is building the project experience and regional partnerships to bring Australian design standards to markets where demand for healthy, ESG-aligned buildings is growing most rapidly.
If you're planning a project where wellness and ESG outcomes matter, we'd like to talk.
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