About DwellSDA

Alexandra Shaw - Director 

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Alexandra Shaw is the Director of DwellSDA, a Queensland-based developer and delivery lead for specialist housing across the disability, aged care, community and government sectors. DwellSDA designs, develops and delivers purpose-built homes through a tight network of specialist partners — licensed Queensland builders, off-site manufacturing, logistics, and Indigenous workforce and subcontractor partners — so that every project is delivered by the right people for the job.

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Alexandra has more than 16 years as a director in the community sector, spanning disability services, aged care, specialist disability accommodation, child safety, and — most recently — short-term transitional residential housing as a Queensland Health provider. That track record has been built across the full cycle of community housing: design, development, delivery, compliance, and day-to-day operations with the people who live in the homes.

Before her work in the community sector, Alexandra and her late husband David ran Vidlex Constructions — a high-end residential design and construction practice based in Manly, Brisbane, with a loyal bayside following. That business evolved into Global Building Resources, sourcing quality building materials from around the world and making them available to the Australian market.

When David was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease, that experience reshaped the direction of Alexandra’s career. David taught her everything she knows about disability, integrity, and what it really means to get housing right for people — the understanding that only the people who live with a condition truly know what good looks like. That lesson sits at the centre of how DwellSDA works today.

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Alessandra Candarella - Managing Director 

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Alessandra Candarella is the Managing Director of DwellSDA, a Queensland-based developer and delivery lead for purpose-built housing across the disability, community and government sectors. An Italian-trained architect and interior designer, Alessandra brings a design sensibility to every project that goes beyond compliance and construction — grounded in the belief that every home, regardless of where it is built or who it is built for, deserves to be beautiful, functional and genuinely fit for the people who will live in it.

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Alessandra trained as an architect and interior designer in Italy before moving to Australia twelve years ago. Since then she has built a career across a wide range of design disciplines — landscape design, cabinetry, and interior design — developing a hands-on understanding of how spaces are experienced from the ground up, not just how they appear on a drawing. That breadth gives DwellSDA's projects a design quality that runs through every detail, from the site plan to the internal specification.

The pivot to community and government housing came from a formative personal experience. Early in her time in Australia, Alessandra spent time living and working in one of the country's largest remote Aboriginal communities. What she encountered there — the scale of housing need, the complexity of remote delivery, and the profound impact that a well-designed home has on how people live — left a lasting impression. It became clear that this was where design could do some of its most important work.

When Alessandra met Alexandra Shaw, the direction became a decision. Both shared a conviction that housing for people with disability and for remote Indigenous communities deserved the same rigour, care and ambition that any serious design practice brings to its best work. DwellSDA was built from that shared purpose.