The Experience Economy
As businesses, institutions, and cities work to reengage in-person audiences, the question remains: what’s worth leaving home for? We believe the answer is simple—recreation and hospitality. The two things you can’t truly get at home.
Recreation and hospitality will define the most valuable real estate of the future. Not just because they gather people, but because they offer access—access to tools, to environments, to energy, to joy. In an era where delivery is instant, work is remote, and entertainment is infinite, the spaces that continue to matter are the ones that deliver more than convenience. They deliver meaning.
At INDIO, we believe this is where design becomes irreplaceable. Hospitality is not just a category—it’s a mindset. It's the human layer that makes automation irrelevant. Whether you’re running a restaurant, an office, a retail showroom, or a skate park, the differentiator isn't what you offer. It’s how you offer it.
1. Experience as Infrastructure
Workplaces aren’t just for work anymore. They’re for gathering, presenting, building, sharing—for doing things that can’t happen alone in front of a laptop. As home offices become the norm for deep focus, physical offices are being redefined around interaction: spaces for collaboration, inspiration, and access to resources—labs, tools, technology, community. This shift demands design that feels more like hospitality than headquarters. The spaces people choose to visit must be energizing, intentional, and impossible to replicate at home. Across industries, experience has become a kind of infrastructure—foundational to value creation, retention, and long-term relevance.
2. Recreation as Anchor
Retail and dining no longer draw crowds on their own. What people want are layered experiences—spaces that offer movement, pleasure, and purpose all at once. That’s why the most successful restaurants, markets, and shops of the future will be adjacent to—or embedded within—recreational ecosystems. Think sports centers with juice bars, parks with cafés, dog runs with retail pavilions, wellness campuses with co-working lounges. As health and wellbeing continue to shape behavior, we see an increasing demand for environments that blend activity with social and sensory delight. This is where we see opportunity for new development: not just places to purchase or consume, but places to play, move, and recharge.
3. Rebalancing the Urban Equation
As these experience-driven spaces grow, sprawling suburbs and nature-rich peripheries offer clear advantages: larger footprints, lower overhead, and proximity to where people live. But there’s a deeper question we can’t ignore—what happens to our downtowns when the gravitational pull of daily life moves away from the center?
At INDIO, we embrace change, but we also take the long view. A thriving urban core is still essential to the health of any region. It's where culture concentrates, where architectural history is preserved, and where identity is shared. Complete decentralization risks more than underused buildings—it weakens the civic and emotional heart of our communities.
That’s why we believe the answer isn’t retreat—it’s reinvention. Urban hospitality and recreation must evolve just as quickly: multifamily housing with shared amenities, rooftop venues, vertical parks, public event zones, and experiential hubs designed for density. These spaces must become just as compelling as their suburban and natural counterparts—distinctly urban, but just as human.
Design has a role to play in both momentum and memory. The future we want isn’t about choosing between the center and the edge. It’s about designing both to thrive.
