Meet The Village Architect
The Village Architect bridges two specialised worlds: heritage-sensitive design and dementia-enabling environments. Founded by an architect with 12+ years of experience in retirement village design working at Ryman Healthcare and a passion for old buildings, our practice offers a unique perspective on creating spaces that honour both heritage and human experience.
Sara McCunnie established The Village Architect in 2025 driven by a vision to extend her extensive expertise in aged care design to benefit a broader community. Recognising the evolving challenges within aged care environments and the shifting typologies of residential spaces, Sara believes her design philosophy—centred on dignity, autonomy and authenticity—has profound applications beyond commercial residential settings. With Waitaki's distinctive architectural character and heritage housing stock, she understands the importance of maintaining familiar environments while sensitively adapting them to changing needs—a principle equally valuable in both heritage-sensitive design and dementia-enabling environments. This practice represents her commitment to translating evidence-based design principles into meaningful environments for people across diverse contexts and needs.
Specialised Expertise in Aged Care and Dementia Design
With many years of specialised experience in dementia-enabling design, Sara brings a unique multidisciplinary approach to creating environments that enhance quality of life while optimising operational efficiency. As co-chair of Dementia Alliance International's Environmental Design Special Interest Group and a member of the Dementia Design Aotearoa Steering Group, she's developed evidence-based strategies that bridge architectural excellence with clinical outcomes. Her expertise spans the entire design continuum—from master planning complex new villages with project costs exceeding $100 million through to major refurbishments valued up to $20 million.
Sara specialises in socio-spatial design that supports both residents and caregivers through thoughtful environments that respond to evolving needs. Her international research, including a healthcare study tour of the Netherlands, informs her work in balancing safety requirements with positive risk-taking to enhance quality of life. Whether developing comprehensive master plans for new facilities, guiding substantial refurbishment projects, or creating strategic frameworks for dementia care environments, she ensures spaces are thoughtfully designed to respond to the vision for the way of life while incorporating progressive approaches to dementia care.
Design Philosophy
Three core principles underpin all her work, represented in The Village Architect logo by a trefoil (three overlapping circles) embraced by a circle and secured inside a square:
Dignity: Creating environments that honour and elevate the human experience
Autonomy: Designing spaces that support independence and choice
Authenticity: Developing settings that feel genuine and appropriate to context
These principles are contained within a circle, symbolising the eco-system approach to design—recognising the interconnected nature of spaces, people, and organisations. The square frame represents evidence-based design practices, providing structure and rigour to the application of these principles in practical settings.
As an icon the logo also references timber fretwork, in a natural heritage green.
A Path of Specialised Expertise
Sara's professional journey began in legal services and education before discovering her passion for architecture. After qualification, she developed skills designing childcare centres before specialising in aged care architecture with Ryman Healthcare. Throughout this journey, Sara maintained connections to residential architecture through small-scale local projects, including extensions, home offices, and sensitive modifications to heritage homes.
Now, as The Village Architect, Sara integrates specialised expertise in designing for wellbeing across different contexts. Based in the Waitaki district, she offers services ranging from modifications and refurbishments to specialised consultation for aged care providers, bringing the same attention to human experience to every scale of project.
Two Complementary Focus Areas
Local Practice: Within the Waitaki District, we focus on heritage-sensitive renovations and age-friendly design. With 23.9% of Waitaki residents aged 65+ (compared to the national average of 16.4%), there is significant local need for design that respects our architectural heritage while accommodating changing needs.
National Consultancy: Across New Zealand and Australia, Sara provides specialised consultancy in dementia-enabling environments for aged care providers. With dementia prevalence at 9.2% in the 65+ population and nearly half of cases undiagnosed, there is urgent need for environments that better support people with cognitive changes.
These two streams of practice inform and strengthen each other, creating a unique perspective that benefits all clients.
Research-Informed Practice
Sara is currently pursuing a PhD in dementia-enabling design with completion targeted for 2030. This academic pursuit actively informs her practice, creating a continuous feedback loop between research, design application, and evaluation. See the Research page for more information.
Rooted in Community
Establishing The Village Architect in Oamaru reflects Sara's commitment to this unique community with its distinctive architectural heritage and changing demographic needs. She believes that respecting our past while accommodating our future needs is not just good design practice—it's essential for maintaining the character and vitality of our community.
Sara and her husband Patrick raised their young family in Kakanui and Oamaru before heading off to spend 10+ years in Melbourne, as she pursued her passion for architecture. During this time they purchased their lifestyle property in Livingstone and in 2012 they returned to the district as empty nesters. Sara is deeply committed to the community and to its heritage.
Qualifications
Master of Architecture (Distinction) - RMIT University, 2009
Bachelor of Architectural Design (Distinction) - RMIT University, 2008
Bachelor of Education, Primary Teaching - Massey University, 2002
Legal Executive Certificate - New Zealand Law Society, 1994
Professional Memberships
Member, New Zealand Institute of Architects (NZIA)
Member, Australian Institute of Architects (AIA)
Co-chair, Dementia Alliance International - Environmental Design Special Interest Group
Member, New Zealand Aged Care Consortium
Member, Dementia Design Aotearoa Steering Group
Professional Development
PhD (Provisional Candidate) - current - Deakin University
URBDES 730 Research Report - Auckland University, 2023
Certificate in Person-centred Dementia Care (Level 4), Otago Polytech, 2022
Understanding Dementia MOOC - University of Tasmania, 2022
Healthcare Study Tour - Netherlands, 2022
We invite you to explore how The Village Architect can support your specific needs, whether you're looking to adapt a heritage building for changing requirements or seeking specialised input on creating environments that better support people living with dementia. Together, we can create spaces that honour both our architectural heritage and human experience.
