Every January, we slow down to look back at the past year, and look forward to what’s upcoming. We identify trends not to predict the future with certainty, but to read the signals that matter. The ones that feel less like noise and more like a clear direction forward. Looking back at 2025, what stands out to me most is not a single space type, technology, or design solution. It’s a deeper shift in mindset, specifically a shift in how we frame the role of design. Across workplace, hospitality, and all sectors, we are witnessing a recalibration: from efficiency to meaning, from functionality to experience, and from static solutions to adaptable systems. Design is no longer asked to simply support behavior; it is expected to shape how people feel, connect, heal, and thrive.
I’ve done my share of trend forecasting in the past, but I thought it would be more meaningful to collect the vision of multiple thought leaders from different parts of our design industry to see where the collective vision leads us. That’s why I started this January column tradition at OfficeInsight last year. I reached out to three industry thought leaders and asked them to use a simple 3-2-1 framework to share their vision—3 trends shaping 2026, 2 foresights for design practice, and 1 wish for the future of our industry. Looking back, last year’s contributors’ visions were right on the mark, and I can’t wait to see this year’s vision take shape.
This year, I invited three design industry thought leaders—Lori Mukoyama (Gensler), Kaelynn Reid (Kimball International, certified futurist and host of the Alternative Design podcast), and Doug Shapiro (JSI, host of the Love What You Do podcast)—to share their vision using the 3-2-1 framework. What emerged was a remarkably aligned narrative and shared direction, one that echoes many of the topics I have explored throughout 2025 in these pages. At its core, this is a story about human experience, and about what becomes more important as our world becomes faster, smarter, and more automated. Below is my synthesis of the collective vision for the year ahead.
Three Trends Shaping the Design Industry in 2026
- Experience Has Become the Strategy
Across sectors, human experience is no longer something added at the end of a project. It is the foundation that sits at the center of decision making.
In hospitality, Mukoyama observes that “wellness and fitness have moved from an amenity to a central reason for travel,” with trips increasingly anchored around “movement, recovery, and overall well-being.” Hospitality destinations will continue to blend fitness with place, encouraging guests to “experience a destination through movement and mindfulness.” Even hotel lobbies are evolving, shifting away from traditional social hubs with alcohol-centric programming toward wellness-oriented offerings, including “juice bars, recovery spaces, and community-driven fitness programming.”
This human experience-first mindset mirrors what we are seeing in workplace design. Reid describes 2025 as the “Year of the Agent,” where AI moved from a passive background “intern” to an autonomous “doer.” Yet rather than diminishing the human role, this shift raises the bar for a more human-centered approach. Organizations are willing to “invest in spaces and experiences that support happiness, belonging, and meaningful connection.” That shift moves the conversation from productivity to performance, and now to resilience. Instead of asking how to get people back in the office, it opens the door to a more useful question: “How do we design an environment where people feel better, work better, and leave better than they arrived?”
Shapiro reinforces this evolution, noting that space has already shifted from a container for tasks to a “place that drives engagement, belonging, creative thinking, and connection.” As AI absorbs more repeatable work, these experiential outcomes become the true value proposition of design.
Across all three perspectives, human experience is no longer something design delivers as a nice-to-have. It has become the central strategy and goal.
- Spaces Are Becoming Living, Adaptable Systems
Another strong signal is the industry’s move away from static solutions toward environments designed to adapt, evolve, and change over time.
Mukoyama points to adaptive reuse as a core hospitality strategy, creating “richer, more layered guest experiences rooted in authenticity and history.” Beyond sustainability, adaptive reuse “embeds storytelling into space from day one, connecting people to place, culture, and community through interior details and historical architectural elements.”
Reid sees a parallel shift in the workplace through the lens of “office as a service.” As work becomes fragmented across locations and modes, the office transforms into “a chain of micro-experiences that guide behavior.” In this context, the office becomes less of a container and more like “an on-demand service that has to perform during peaks, handle unpredictability, and earn the commute through moments that matter.” That shift reinforces why workplaces can no longer rely on “one big amenity or one perfect layout,” but instead have to deliver a “reliable sequence of experiences” and adapt quickly as daily rhythms change.
Shapiro adds an important point about experimentation and rapid prototyping. As the pace of business accelerates and uncertainty increases, clients will be more open to “pilot spaces and trial concepts.” Design becomes less about permanence and more about learning and adapting.
What connects these perspectives is a change in definition. Spaces are no longer static, finished products. They are living systems designed to respond to change, with flexibility, adaptability, and future changes in mind.
- Human Connection Is the New Competitive Advantage
Perhaps the most consistent trend across all three contributors is the renewed importance of connection and a deeper focus on people.
Mukoyama sees this focus on connection in both hospitality and sports venues, where destinations are designed to extend engagement beyond a single event, managing the guest or fan journey with intention and care. In hospitality, luxury brands are using travel and place to build “emotional connection” and allow guests to “live inside the brand” as part of their own story. A similar shift is happening in sports venues, which are “no longer single-purpose, seasonal destinations,” but places that manage the fan journey and extend connection before and after the main event.
In the workplace, Reid describes a growing emphasis on “social spatial strategy and relational infrastructure,” noting that collaboration and relationship-building are the “new social workflow” and core operational imperatives. Because people interact in very different ways, she argues that there is “no single social space type that works for everyone,” and that “the size, formality, and emotional weight of an interaction” should guide design decisions. As a result, “community is shifting from an amenity into a strategic workflow,” with workplaces offering a richer menu of social experiences that support connection as part of everyday work.
Shapiro offers a necessary counterpoint to the accelerating pace of work, suggesting that if AI speeds everything up, physical space must “slow down the right moments: deep thought, personal connection, learning, and recovery.”
In 2026, connection is not about creating a “collaboration zone” or packing more people into the same room. It is about designing the right conditions that allow meaningful interaction to happen.
Two Foresights for Design Practice
- Scenario Planning Will Become a Core Design Skill
Both Reid and Shapiro highlight scenario planning as essential as uncertainty stretches further into the future.
Reid notes that while organizations are collecting more data than ever, from occupancy to biometric to behavioral data, value comes from deciding what to do with it. She argues that leaders will need “an action plan based not only on what the current data says, but what it could mean in different scenarios,” which is why she believes “scenario planning will become more prevalent in the industry” as organizations continue to ask “now what” after collecting valuable data.
Shapiro echoes this point, suggesting that the five-to-seven-year future could look very different from today, and designers will increasingly be asked to imagine and plan for a range of possible scenarios.
As an IIDA Certified Design Futurist (CDF), this focus on scenario planning aligns closely with my own belief that strategic foresight must become embedded in design practice. Designing for one future is no longer enough. We must design for multiple, plausible futures through researching signals, analyzing trends, and planning experience scenarios.
- Designing for Presence Will Define Future Spaces
If scenario planning helps us prepare for multiple futures, designing for presence helps ensure those futures feel grounded and human. As technology becomes more pervasive, thoughtful restraint becomes more meaningful.
Mukoyama describes “offline as the new luxury,” noting that as lives become more connected through technology, moments of disconnection are becoming rarer. She sees a growing appetite for hospitality environments that support a technology-free experience, where designers shape spaces that make “unplugging feel natural.” This might take the form of tech-light guest rooms, social spaces that encourage conversation over content, or environments that engage the senses in more intentional ways. For her, the real opportunity lies in “design with greater restraint and more thoughtfulness.”
Shapiro echoes this perspective, arguing that space should give us signals that remind us we are not entirely living inside an optimized, AI-mediated experience. People will gravitate toward spaces that feel “hand-made, not generated,” places that communicate care and human touch.
Looking ahead, this foresight suggests that one of the most meaningful roles of design in the coming years will be creating spaces that restore attention, presence, and humanity.
One Collective Wish, Three Voices
Rather than combining their hopes into a single statement, it feels important to let each wish stand on its own.
Mukoyama hopes we “successfully redefine the all-inclusive hospitality experience,” evolving it into something “curated and experiential, rooted in thoughtful programming, wellness, design excellence, storytelling, and a strong sense of place.”
Reid wishes for an “increasing transition from designing spaces and products for one-time installs into living systems that change and are designed to evolve with user needs.”
And Shapiro leaves us with a simple question, one he hopes we ask more often: “Does this make us better?”
Looking Ahead: Designing For People
As I look toward 2026, what gives me optimism is not any single trend, but the growing alignment across our design industry. We are designing less for efficiency and more for experience. Less for single-use permanence and more for flexibility and adaptability. Less focus on productivity and more focus on people. We are paying closer attention to people’s emotions, how they experience space through the senses, and how they feel in the environments we create.
Together, this collective vision suggests a shared responsibility. As designers, strategists, and industry leaders, our task in 2026 is not just to respond to change, but to shape it with intention. In an accelerated world shaped by uncertainty, design’s role is to create conditions for human connection, resilience, meaning, and growth. Perhaps the most meaningful work we can do is designing spaces that help us be better humans.