Incorporating wellness into our everyday life is increasingly being recognised as vital to our overall health – and nowhere is this more important than in the place in which we live.
At the forefront of the healthy urban living movement, Moda – the UK’s leading rental lifestyle brand – is aiming to create the healthiest rental homes in the UK, starting with its Angel Gardens development opening in Manchester city centre next year.
As part of a programme to support its residents’ physical and emotional wellness, the brand has announced a partnership with hero – a brand new and unique digital wellness concept, launched by Joe Gaunt, the former UK MD of $35bn co-working company WeWork and ex-director of Virgin Active.
hero will provide onsite workout facilities – named ‘training clubs’ – open to both consumers and residents – while also launching a new digital platform to track the health, nutrition and happiness of all who take part.
hero is built on the understanding that leading a healthy lifestyle can be challenging and that exercise is better when it’s together, both in terms of physical results and mental motivation. Every hero member works out as part of a group or with a personal trainer – never alone.
The first training clubs will open in May 2019 at Moda’s 466-home Angel Gardens development in Manchester. With the aim of creating a culture of wellbeing by looking at physical, mental and social health in a new way, hero will offer proactive and personalised solutions based on experience working with the highest level of elite in sport.
The training clubs will be split into four zones, to reflect four disciplines; Stronger, Athletic, Cardio and Rejuvenate. Residents will also get on-site access to a range of experts and technology focused services such as a physiotherapist, nutritionist and 3D body scanning.
hero will also run a private residents-only gym on Angel Gardens’ seventh floor.
Members will be offered full digital support – through an app that tracks how activity, nutrition, mindfulness and movement impacts their overall health and wellbeing. With 3D body scanning and a purpose-built tech platform, hero will help its members achieve better results through actionable analytics fed from wearables people use to track sleep, movement, nutrition and mood.
As well as a focus on digital support, the partnership with hero will also provide hugely varied onsite support around nutrition and mindfulness. Hero will provide mental health first aid training to Moda’s on-site residents’ team, helping them understand and help a person who may be developing a mental health issue.
Hero recently acquired a specialist nutrition company that works with everyone from international rugby teams to premier league champions which will enable it to provide the same pro-sport nutrition advice to Moda residents.
Hero’s platform encourages members and residents to form groups and compete with each other, gamifying the wellbeing experience and enabling community events such as nutrition led cooking classes and group fitness.
Aimed at young professionals, young families and downsizing seniors keen to reconnect with urban living, Moda plans to offer long-term tenancies and an array of shared spaces which will include over 80 co-working spaces in its Manchester scheme.
