Chicago-based Mary Cook Associates (MCA), a national, award-winning commercial interior design firm, today released images from the recently-opened Oleander, a 384-unit luxury rental apartment community in Brookhaven, Ga., developed by Toll Brothers Apartment Living.

As with all of its projects, MCA uses psychographics to ensure the spaces it designs facilitate certain types of desirable behaviors and responses from residents. At Oleander, research showed that renters would likely be inspired by a holistic design focused on living well; be highly educated professionals at different stages of life; work in healthcare; and prefer living in communities that reflect those same values through sophisticated, comfortable, multi-purpose and restorative interior spaces.

“Our design process really lets us drill down to what motivates residents and how they are most likely to positively interact with spaces, which is invaluable information for developers,” said Mary Cook, founder and president of Mary Cook Associates. Oleander incorporates calm and meditative common areas for residents to feel rejuvenated, along with fitness and endurance activities. The building’s commitment to healthy living is underscored through MCA’s use of natural materials in calming hues.

“In addition to a focus on wellness, psychographics showed that Oleander residents also want flexibility in their amenity spaces, so the common areas are designed with this in mind,” noted Cook. “For example, the library does triple duty as it can also be easily converted to a private conference or dining room, complete with smart screens and video capabilities for the former and a catering kitchen for the latter.”

All of Oleander’s public spaces feature state-of-the-art technology to accommodate social activities, special events or coworking. A lounge devoted to games and social interactions includes billiards, shuffle board, a wine tasting bar, lounge seating and secluded nooks. Even the mail lounge offers private spaces for working or reading. Additional indoor features include a resident lounge with fireplace, coworking space and coffee bar.

To compliment the building’s holistic design, MCA used a soothing palette of creams, grays and blues, gold accents and light countertops that reflect light and brighten rooms. Textured area rugs add warmth while intentionally curated furniture groupings are positioned in a way that encourages intimate conversation and are incorporated throughout the common areas. The abundant lighting adds a layer of radiance, inspiring the inner peace that residents seek through their commitment to living wellness-centered lives.

A natural finish to the flooring and furniture completes the aesthetic, while giving a subtle nod to the community’s nature-inspired outdoor amenities. Also serving as a connection to the outdoors is an eye-catching floor-to-ceiling sculptural element of suspended organic leaf shapes that are echoed throughout the property in a variety of forms. In the sculpture, the leaves are dancing with rays of light over green grasses.

Outside, the exterior amenities are integrated throughout three separate courtyards, the largest of which includes a resort-style, year-round pool with an expansive sundeck, lounging patio and custom water feature. Another beautifully landscaped courtyard features an oversized fireplace, multiple grilling stations, a custom-built beer garden with its own tap station, a king-sized communal table, low and high-top dining tables and a range of lounge seating that includes hammocks, club chairs and sectionals. The third outdoor space includes a bark park pet play area and additional lounging areas.

Oleander is located at 10 Executive Park West NE, near Emory University’s 60-acre Executive Park campus, a new Sports Medicine Complex that’s home to an Atlanta Hawks training center, and the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta medical complex that is under construction.

For more information about Mary Cook Associates, visit www.marycook.com.

About Mary Cook Associates:

Mary Cook Associates (MCA) is a national, award-winning commercial interior design firm acclaimed for work that yields measurable returns for real estate owners and developers. The firm is comprised of more than two dozen designers and architects offering strategic and imaginative designs for a wide variety of spaces that respond to the demographic, geographic and lifestyle influences of target markets. This results in smart spaces that establish immediate connections with their users and accelerate activity, occupancy rates and sales for marketers. After realizing that MCA has been consistently hired to ‘fix’ unsuccessful interior spaces done by other design professionals, founder Mary Cook wrote “The Art of Space,” a textbook that breaks interior design into seven fundamentals. The book is used in design schools throughout the U.S., and its seven principles form a foundation that informs all of the design work MCA produces.

Cook is also credited with introducing the concept of Return on Environment (R.O.E.) to the design and development communities. The term reflects the measurable net benefits communities, organizations and individuals gain from environments that enable them to do, feel and be their best. www.marycook.com.