Eco-healthy village interactive exhibition

Shaping healthier futures through play for IICG (IKEA Centres).

An immersive educational installation developed for Mar Shopping Matosinhos (IICG - IKEA Centres). Designed as a summer activation for a shopping mall, it transformed the space into a playful, interactive village that engaged over 1,200 children through gamified storytelling focused on health, well-being, and sustainability.

TYPOLOGY ➡️ Temporary Edutainment Installation.

DESCRIPTION ➡️ The project was part of a strategic initiative to activate the shopping centre during the summer season while reinforcing the group’s brand values of community, well-being, and environmental responsibility.

The client’s briefing was open, allowing full creative freedom. This led to the development of a bold and original concept — a “Healthy Village” that combined storytelling, learning, and entertainment through modular, thematic environments. The outcome was a cohesive and engaging experiential journey that invited children to explore and learn through play.

ROLE ➡️ Strategic Project Manager | Experience Designer for the agency Alcateia Lab.

SOFTWARE ➡️ Adobe (Illustrator, Photoshop) | Office 365 (PowerPoint, Excel, Word, One Drive) | Asana | AutoCAD | 3DstudioMax.

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💭Problem Statement

How can a shopping mall, traditionally focused on retail, be transformed into an engaging, educational space for families during the summer season?

One that promotes health, sustainability, and community values while driving meaningful footfall and brand connection for IICG (IKEA Centres)?

🎯Project Goals

Designing an immersive environment that is educational, fun, and visually engaging.
Design an immersive and educational environment that was both fun and visually engaging
Promote healthy habits, sustainability, and social interaction among children and families
Create an inclusive and safe experience for children aged 4–12
Deliver a multidisciplinary, temporary installation aligned with IICG’s (IKEA Centres) brand values
Integrate health, environment, and community concepts into a cohesive experiential narrative.

🚧Challenges

Very short timeline — only two months from concept to implementation.
Limited budget and restricted physical space within the mall.
No predefined creative direction provided by the client.
Tight coordination between multiple teams — design, production, educators, and animators.
Logistical complexity of a full overnight installation in an active commercial space.
Balancing creative innovation with safety regulations and operational feasibility.

🔧 Approach

The experience was designed as a journey through the “Healthy Village”, where children became explorers moving through themed learning modules:

🚐 Eco Van (Entrance): The narrative gateway to the adventure.
🛒 Grocery Market: Learn how to identify healthy versus unhealthy food choices.
🍎 Food World: Interactive wheel and puzzle games on food literacy.
🦷 Dentist Station: Reinforcing oral hygiene after the nutrition modules.
🥗 Green Restaurant: Role-play area to cook, recycle, and interact with others.
🏋️ Gym: Encouraging movement and physical awareness.
🎨 Workshop: Children created their own food pyramid as a takeaway souvenir.

Given the fast-paced production, traditional prototyping was replaced by collaboration with nutritionists and child therapists, ensuring that each experience was both engaging and developmentally appropriate.

🚐 Eco Van

Children entered through the Eco Van and began their adventure.

🛒 Grocery Market

A place where they learned how to choose healthy and sustainable foods.

🍎 Food World

A spinning wheel game and a healthy habits puzzle.

🦷 Dentist Station

After learning about food, they visited the Dentist to understand the importance of oral hygiene.

🥗 Green Restaurant

A space designed entirely around healthy food combinations. Here, children could take on different roles: working in the kitchen, helping clean up, managing waste and recycling, or simply interacting with others in the dining area. This setup allowed for different types of social interaction and role play, catering to a variety of personalities and learning styles.

🏋️ Gym

The journey continued with a mini-gym to promote movement and ended at the Workshop, where kids created their own food pyramid — a personalized, take-home merchandising item that extended the experience beyond the space.

🎨 Workshop
Here, each child could create and reflect on their learnings, crafting their own food pyramid — a personalized take-home item designed as a piece of merchandising. This final activity served as both a reinforcement of key concepts and a tangible souvenir to extend the learning experience beyond the event.

👩🏻‍🔧 Actions

I oversaw the full project lifecycle, ensuring alignment between strategy, concept, educational intent, production, and on-site execution.

Working closely with a multidisciplinary team, I supported decision-making, coordination, and quality across all project phases — while managing scope, timelines, and budget to ensure a consistent and high-impact delivery.

Key responsibilities included:

Leading the conceptual direction, narrative framework, and creative presentation to the client.
Supporting client negotiation and maintaining ongoing communication with key stakeholders.
Overseeing visual direction and ensuring consistency across physical and digital assets.
Coordinating suppliers, builders, and specialist consultants (nutritionists and child therapists).
Recruiting and training the animation team responsible for delivering the experience.
Supervising the overnight installation and supporting daily operations during the 20-day event.
Managing scope, timelines, budgets, and project risks.
Monitoring KPIs to ensure the experience met its educational and experiential objectives.

🌟Project Impact

✅ Delivered an engaging educational experience to over 1,200 children within a demanding two-month timeline.

✅ Helped reinforce IICG’s positioning by transforming the mall into a space for learning, community, and sustainable values.

✅Demonstrated how storytelling and experience design can encourage healthier behaviours and strengthen brand connection.

✅Highlighted the potential of experiential learning in commercial spaces as a driver of social value and brand differentiation.

📘Takeaways

✔️ Delivered a multidisciplinary installation on time, within budget and scope.

✔️ Turned a vague brief into a structured experiential narrative, aligning stakeholders.

✔️ Coordinated cross-functional teams (design, production, education, construction, animation).

✔️Managed complex logistics for an overnight installation in an active commercial space.

✔️Ensured safety, inclusion, and accessibility for children aged 4–12.

✔️ Maintained alignment between brand values, educational content, and visitor experience.

✔️ Anticipated risks in accelerated timelines, supplier coordination, and on-site execution.

✔️Translated ambitious concepts into high-quality real-world experiences within physical and financial constraints.