Curating New Lives and Communities

Our culture is beginning to value experiences over material goods. What matters are things we interact with in a meaningful way, every day: electronics, clothes, homes; but we opt for small, with all the upgrades.

As a Gen-Yer — that segment of the population more likely to have the Internet in our pockets than cash — I like change, collaboration, and creativity. When I try to envision the future, I look for cultural shifts, and this generation, also known as the Millennials, offers the best clues. I think of them not as a demographic but as a mindset. Envisioning is imagination with a clear intent, and Generation Y expects the customization and ease of their digital lives to occur in their physical realm. My job is to build scenarios where culture, technology, and business collide and benefit from one another. In the next decade, three clear trends will affect architecture and design.

Living Smaller
My team at Continuum (we’re called NXT) has been talking about a trend we’re calling “Living Smaller.” We’re noticing this change in the aspirations of Gen-Yers, the first generation expected to do worse, financially, than previous ones. They can’t afford to live bigger. They take pride in being different from their parents. They don’t think they’ll be able to afford what they want, so they’re scaling back before they even try.

Our culture is beginning to value experiences over material goods. What matters are things we interact with in a meaningful way, every day: electronics, clothes, homes; but we opt for small, with all the upgrades. Technology will allow us to migrate into the digital realm. We spend a lot of time there already, so living without physical manifestations of things is becoming the norm. Look at what happened to DVDs — the same will happen with décor. It’s about recognizing what’s unnecessary and curating our lives. The same approach will determine with whom we choose to live: We will assemble social networks, buying homes in groups, creating microcommunities.

Climate Control
As the conversation switches from “climate change” to “climate control,” there will be architectural tradeoffs to consider. Some of the most desirable properties may become uninsurable. Will we build disposable structures or fortresses against nature? With sea-level rise, geographically favorable locations will shift. People will look for places without forest fires, flooding, or tornadoes. Safety and environmental stability will be key drivers.

We will use architecture as a way to filter nature, pulling it into our homes rather than walking out into it. We will insist on maintaining our relationship to it — we don’t want fake — and drive our architecture to give us the best of nature within our defined spaces.

Tastemakers
Everyone will be a tastemaker in the same way that iPhones and Instagram made everyone a photographer. People will talk about the effort that went into choosing the right materials, colors, and styles for their surroundings. They won’t mind that they’re confined to a small square — they’ll see it as a hive of innovation. They won’t even care that they don’t own their creations; they already own nothing.

The future of architecture is in developing tools for people to design and curate their space so they can express their creativity. There might be a million options, but there’s only one that’s right for Generation Y. Middleman platforms such as Pinterest put the tools of designers (mood boards, material samples) into the hands of everyone. You can (virtually) create a collection, squint your eyes, and start seeing the bigger picture while you get set for change.

That’s what I like about the process of envisioning: you can begin designing a world people want to live in. Architects should help these tools evolve and create new platforms for collaborating with clients, who can then say, “I made this.”

This article was originally published in ArchitectureBoston, a quarterly publication of the Boston Society of Architects. See it here.

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