Design Forecast 2016

Gensler Design Forecast 2016
Health & Wellness
Well-being is the
new global currency
Health consumers will self-direct their own
wellness, reaching out to a range of providers.
Work and leisure time already take in wellness,
catering to consumers’ preferences to
have personal care built-in or close at hand,
and walk-in or app-scheduled. Self-diagnostic
tools will support people’s collaboration with
their doctors and allow them to evaluate the
health of their home and work settings too.
Providers continue to build alignments
between medical centers and small practices,
changing how services are delivered and
promoting consolidation. House calls and
community-based clinics are being revived as
the new model, while big regional centers
are opening branded specialist clinics in local
markets. As the real cost of services is
clarified, providers will turn to development
and ownership models that make financing
easier and deliver a higher return on real
estate investment.
already turn to the web for immediate advice,
while apps prompt them to stay healthy. In
the near future, remote sensors will monitor
them and communicate with their providers.
As these options proliferate, inpatient
hospitals and clinics will focus on serious
health issues—using computers to aid
diagnosis and design personalized therapies.
Remote consultation is growing, and VR
devices may extend the medical team’s
reach. Labs are automating analysis and using
apps to speed results to medical teams
and patients.
The hospital of tomorrow might resemble
the research lab of today, where boundaries
between research, education, and clinical
care disappear. As part of this network, the
hospital will develop a new civic role that
focuses on community health and well-being
integrators, helping patient-consumers
navigate the new structure.
Artificial intelligence will change health and
wellness into a daily lifestyle pattern. People
above: Meixi Lake Exhibition Center,
Changsha, China
below: SymFit at Symantec, Mountain View, CA
Convention Centers
Building on the city’s
drawing power
By looking beyond “the box” and adding
a range of facilities, convention centers will
deliver the city as a venue, recognizing that
it’s the real draw for convention goers. This
destination-focused approach may require
new partners and ways of operating, but it
gets around cost and space constraints that
might hinder expansion and upgrades.
Breaking out of the box also makes it easier
to open up centers and give them a new
urbanity and humanity. This is a trend for
museums too, consciously connecting
themselves and their amenities to urban
walkways and neighborhood attractions,
and outdoor views, as part of the scene.
As more airports become gateways for
national and global travelers, cities are
upgrading convention centers to first
tier. This is part of these cities’ efforts to
revive downtowns and build synergistically
on the growing number of events and
attractions around their convention centers.
Austin is a model, extending its SXSW live
music festivals into a larger program of tech
and innovation gatherings that attract an
international following. In this scenario, it’s
less about a convention center, more about
creating a district that can cater to the locals,
but can also scale up to accommodate surges
of out-of-town visitors when the episodic big
events and conferences pull them in.
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