Musings from No Walls Studio

Will trade ideas for Substack sign ups.

Aren’t you bored of the same old same old? Sick of…

• Adidas Sambas.

• Stanley cups (the thing you drink out of – not to be confused with The Stanley Cup)

• Linkedin posts like: ”Today is my 15th wedding anniversary, this is what marriage has taught me about cloud computing”

• AI → Bitcoin → AI → Bitcoin (beep boop beep boop)

And how about?

• The “flight to quality”

• Proptech crash

• “Luxury” “Hospitality” “Biophilic” “Wellness” “Tech-enabled” “Experiential”

• Buildings named “The [Insert a random person’s name]”

• Hyatt-in-disguise hotels

• Office brokers and tenant reps insisting that in-person work is the future

We’re cruising into 2025 on a mission to make this overwhelming sameness extinct. Out with the old, in with the new.

Here are the things we want to shake up this coming year:

Amenity splatter. Let’s start with the word. If you’re using the word Amenities in 2025, you’re not telling a good enough story through your space. The word amenity reminds us of an awkward appendage – like an extra eye ball or finger – rather than a natural extension of your brand. More often than not, “amenity” obsessed developers lack a strong north star to guide their space planning. They end up with golf simulators in the buildings on the edgy side of town – they just don’t fit. On the flip side, the best developers lean on brand positioning and consumer / cultural insights to craft their designs…so that every space fits like a glove. Let’s get rid of the word “amenity” altogether and focus on telling a cohesive brand story. What does your brand stand for? The answer to that question should guide the types of spaces you include in your buildings.

Not enough budget where it counts. $75K water feature in the lobby? Set your money on fire. Mini magazine that tells the story of your brand and neighborhood. Mega first impression. Windows 95-looking website? Not touching the space with a ten foot pole. Investing in artful wayfinding. Instant differentiation. ¾ of your marketing budget allocated to bidding on “luxury” and “pet friendly” keywords. Expensive rat race. High caliber interior and exterior renderings. Priceless. Long story short: our budgets are out of whack for the size and scale of our product development and launch (most other industries allocate at least 20% of their budgets to marketing). And our dollars don’t line up with what moves the needle for customer acquisition and retention.

The pesky asset class mindset. Buildings are consumer products – treat them like consumer products. You buy things based on brand, right? Your customers do too. You come back to a product when it adds value to your life? Your customers do too. Your attention is grabbed by design and communication that looks and feels different, correct? Same with your customers. Keep those three things in mind when building your new product – and please pony up on the creative.

Boring, corporate, and ineffective spatial archetypes. “Let’s plop a coworking scheme in here.” “I have a great precedent for a demonstration kitchen.” “We need a monumental seating cluster in the lobby…a real showstopper.” We’re bearish on Grandma’s space types and bullish on designing based on modes and brand. Modes = what customers need + what they want to feel. Brand = what your business stands for. When we design based on modes and brand, and not what everyone else is doing, we create really good spaces. Here’s the truth: most people don’t love their spaces, they just tolerate them. So why not try something different?

Relegating service to an afterthought. Service could be the silver bullet in every asset class. Give us a cool looking shack with otherworldly service and we’d contemplate a 12 month lease. But very few spaces have really nailed service. In fact, most asset classes go through the painstaking product development process just to offer commodity third-party service (aka same old stuff). 2025 is the year to dive deep into your service philosophy, customize your services to your brand promise, create measurable KPIs for service excellence, and innovate the hell out of your service stack.

Order of operations. Brand before design. Brand before design. Brand before design. You wouldn’t put your shoes on before your underwear. You wouldn’t learn to drive before learning to read. And you shouldn’t spend $30 million dollars designing and constructing a building to turn around and figure out what it means. 2025 is the year to do things in the right order. Here’s what happens when you get it right: you can easily decide which spaces are in and out, your vendors are moving in the same direction, and you're no longer making taste-based decisions (the end of pointless “I like this, but I like this, but I like this…” arguments).

Rebrand “brand.” Ah, the irony here is bittersweet. The word “brand” doesn’t actually mean to you what it means to us…which is a really f-ing big brand problem. Most developers think a brand is a logo. Commissionable by 99designs or a graphic design freelancer. In fact, a brand is your reputation. What you stand for to customers. How you appear, talk, and show up. Your events. Millwork. Pricing. Art. Service…. just about everything. 2025 is the year to rebrand “brand.” We tried using placemaking (it didn’t really work). Any other thoughts? I guess that’s our job.

Hire from anywhere. Let’s imagine you're designing a hotel in Oklahoma City. You only hire vendors in OKC. Landscape architects, interior designers, brand developers, etc. Do you think that project would look like everything else in town? Yes, it will. Now is the time to expand your geographical horizons. Some services are best navigated through local partners, but many are better served with an entirely different perspective.

Quality in, quality out. There are very few deals or cuttable corners in brand and design. You can get great interior composition from less expensive materials and furniture, but you need to hire a badass designer to achieve that goal. You can get a brand system that scales at a low cost, limiting paper and other expensive inputs, but you need to hire a badass brand developer to achieve that goal. Let’s make 2025 the year of collaborative budgeting. Give your partners a look at your allocations and they’ll help you get the most out of your money. We all want to win.

And finally,

Most importantly,

Go with different. In every project, we move the goalposts of creativity. However, in every project, the magnetism of the market norm is a big challenge to overcome and we lose a lot of great ideas. Here’s the kicker: 100% of the time, the highly creative elements–the funky patterns, off the wall names, cool art work, edgy communication, etc.–that make it to the finish line emerge as our clients’ most prized brand features. They’re also the bits and pieces that customers really embrace. What does this mean for you? This is the year to take a big leap of faith into creativity. Step out of your comfort zone. Go a little wild. Everyone will be happier with a space that looks and feels like a breath of fresh air.

Happy 2025 ya’ll. Let’s make it one to remember.

Missed our feature in The Brand Identity? Check it out now.

🚨 WHO IS NO WALLS STUDIO (AND WHAT DO WE DO)?

No Walls Studio is a design and brand consultancy that helps real estate developers create spaces that people love.

Our mission is to make sameness extinct in real estate, which means that everything we do comes with new ideas and unique angles — all, grounded in a deep understanding of culture and consumers.

We do three things for our clients (often, all in the same project):

• Research & Insights

• Brand Development

• Spatial Experience Design

Want to work with us or learn more?