This year, a diverse team of NELSON design leaders attended industry-defining events, representing practices across our organization, including workplace, civic and justice, education, hospitality, mixed-use, multifamily, and adaptive reuse and repositioning. Each of these leaders was there to be inspired and to continue boldly transforming the human experience through design and architecture.

We are excited to share our findings and insights around key themes that are driving innovation and transformation. Join us as we explore the intersection of creativity, purpose, and innovation in design, discovering how these trends are poised to influence the spaces we inhabit for years to come. In this report, we will cover trends in sustainability, connection, health and wellness, equality and equity, aesthetic influences, and trends that push the boundaries of design.

In recent years, physical amenities have become an imperative perk to differentiate your property’s experience, but the rise of COVID-19 has shifted consumer behavior and the role of the workplace (check out our post on Top 10 COVID-Safe Amenities). Soon, pressure for employees to return to the office full time will ease and it will be up to landlords to create a differentiated foundation for programming, engagement, and collaboration that tenants not only want to return to but cannot be replicated at home. The traditional definition of amenities will expand to support lifestyles – both in and outside the property – and successful future perks will be a blend of digital offerings and experiential environments, as our teammate Holly Williamson recently shared with the New York Real Estate Journal. 

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Leading Regional Trends: Northeast |  Southeast |  Central |  West

Good Reads | Featured Project

Northeast: Urban Convenience

Even post-pandemic, urban hubs in the Northeast will still value convenience in their workplace offerings. From secure bike rooms to commute-tracking apps, the focus will be on ease of experience, as much as safety. With public transit still a concern, offices should consider adding perks like an Uber allowance or electric scooter rentals for alternative transportation options. Landlords might even consider offering additional square footage in satellite buildings to give tenants and employees more flexibility in where they go to work, providing a dedicated network rather than a dedicated office. Consider conducting tenant surveys to understand your commute breakdown to provide more relevant offerings.

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Southeast: Foodie Focus

The foodie culture of the South will need to be reimagined in the wake of the pandemic. Landlords will need to get creative to offer a differentiated food and beverage experience for their tenants, with safety in mind. Consider win-win partnerships with local restaurants, food trucks, catering apps like Relish, and even cloud kitchens, to offer employees unique, localized food offerings in a more controlled environment. Create dedicated drop-off zones for food delivery with warming drawers, refrigerators, and disposable utensils to reduce touches and streamline the process. 

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Central: All Season Entertainment

Now that tenants have been forced to embrace the working from home experiment, the role of the office is shifting. While heads-down work can easily be accomplished at home, the office will be need to be transformed into a social destination – an experiential hub for brands, dedicated to hosting clients, encouraging employee engagement, and facilitating teammate collaboration – and amenities will need to follow suit.  Consider creating more elevated, year-round spaces that can flex depending on the occasion and get employees excited about an excuse to return to the office. 

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West: Wandering Wellness

A healthy lifestyle is nothing new in this region, but a renewed focus on holistic, outdoor wellness will reign supreme in the coming years. Create differentiated amenities like hiking trails, dedicated meditation areas, or artificial turf for multi-purpose events and activities, to allow your tenants to unwind and recharge in a safe environment. If you’re short on square footage, consider app subscriptions for on-demand content like Headspace, LulaFit, or Peloton.

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Good Reads

• 10 COVID-Safe Building Amenities
• Reimagining amenities for the future of workplace
• LulaFit adjusts to coronavirus crisis by shifting to virtual amenities programs
• The best workplace amenities are the ones your employees don’t even notice
• Food is a big deal at work. Here’s how the pandemic will change lunch and snacks
• A place to meet, a place to relax: what members want from their workspace
• Fitbit rolls out ‘Ready for Work’ COVID-19 symptom tracker
• The amenity evolution
• The future of work is hybrid: Work from home and the workplace
• The amenity effect: making your office building more marketable

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Featured Project: Nomad Tower

We reimagined this 39-story building in New York City’s upcoming neighborhood known as NoMad, located north of Madison Square. Elevated amenity spaces including a private lounge complete with ping pong, pool table, and arcade games. In addition, tenants can take advantage of a conference room, 200-person amphitheater, fitness center, private coffee bar, and New York’s largest bicycle storage and bicycle access to an office building.

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See full project details  View Asset Strategy

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As the global pandemic forces retail and restaurant brands to radically adapt, pivot and innovate, this is an opportune moment for the two industries to learn from each other. Our design and strategy teams recently joined forces to weigh in on the TOP 10 experiential strategies from each industry—identifying who does what best.

The conversation in HR departments is evolving from employee wellness to employee well-being. What’s the difference, and how can law firms address this shift through progressive office design?

2018 ushered in a strong economy, a stock market rollercoaster, and some controversial trade policy decisions. How has this impacted our industry? The labor market remains strong and interest rates are beginning to rise. We expect end users to start asking for materials that last longer than a short-term lease, as we witness occupancy costs rising. Trade tariffs are prompting interior designers to pay attention to where a product is manufactured. Many foreign manufacturers are raising prices to protect their profits and to stay in business. We expect that this issue will be top-of-mind for many of our clients in 2019.

We now have plenty of projects to go around, but we don’t necessarily have the labor pool to construct them. We would expect to see construction costs rising and general contractors to become more selective on which assignments to produce. What does all of this mean for interior design projects in 2019? Let’s have some fun and take a shot at what we can expect to see this year!

Many factors will shape the future of restaurants and the way we dine, but at a minimum, the industry will be led by new behaviors that were shaped by what we learned about dining when it was gone.

While traditional dining is here to stay, brands will need to explore new avenues of engagement both inside and outside restaurants. Learn more about the future of engaging food experiences in our latest report.

The world of work has undergone tremendous change in the last three years. During that time, NELSON has designed 1.5 million square feet of legal workspace for 28 different law firms. Fundamental to our approach has been asking questions that push beyond the borders of a particular project: Rather than responding solely to requests for design services, we explore firm objectives, operational methods, and culture to develop solutions that truly respond to deep organizational needs.

This has given us a unique perspective on what makes a successful legal workplace. We have distilled that knowledge into five core insights that can guide firms as they think about creating contemporary workplaces.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced our society to accept a new normal, and these learned behaviors will cause a monumental shift in how we return to the workplace. A shift where every corporation must embrace a renewed sense of energy on creating environments that are safe, healthy, and inspiring to work in.

At NELSON, it’s our goal to provide a holistic approach of strategic changes employers can make today, tomorrow, and in the future, to make this transition back into the workplace as seamless as possible.

The effects of the global pandemic will reflect the flaws of our past but will also give us the opportunity to emerge stronger than before.

At NELSON, we’re rewriting the rules by boldly transforming the employee experience through innovative architecture and design, revolutionizing the way legal professionals work. We believe in a holistic approach to design and partner with our clients to create spaces that support their unique brand- and sector-specific connections and promote engagement.

In today’s legal workplace, hierarchical organization of office space, crowned by the ultimate reward of the corner office for the highest ranking attorneys, reigns supreme. But as is true for any static institution that doesn’t keep up with the changing times, a revolution is taking place.