The room hasn't changed, but we have.
Are you missing the point?
We don’t live like we used to.
We don’t work like we used to.
We don’t travel like we used to.
So why do our units, offices, and hotel rooms still feel like they were designed in 2011? Or, more honestly, 1957.
Let’s zoom out.
The apartment unit was born out of postwar efficiency. After WWII, American cities leaned into minimalism and modularity: one-bedroom walkups with boxy kitchens, tight bathrooms, and copy-paste floorplans designed for nuclear families and low-maintenance living.
The office? Still echoes the Taylorist assembly line. Rooted in early 20th-century industrial design, then bloomed into cubicle farms of the ’70s and ’80s, then morphed into open-plan chaos post-2000. But all of it assumes you show up at 9, sit still, and clock out at 5.
The hotel room? Largely unchanged since the motor lodge boom of the 1950s. A bed, a desk, a nightstand, a bathroom, and maybe a bible. The only difference now is you pay extra for a Bluetooth speaker and a slightly funkier headboard.
All three of these core spaces were designed around lives we no longer live. They were optimized for simplicity, repetition, uniformity, and a user that doesn’t exist anymore.
For all the talk of innovation in real estate, too many of the spaces we actually occupy haven’t kept pace with the human experience. The core of the product—the room you sleep in, the space you work from, the apartment you come home to—hasn’t evolved. We’ve thrown energy at the wrappers: rooftop fire pits, wellness rooms, digital access, and gear rentals. But the space itself? Still awkward layouts, sterile finishes, and a total mismatch with reality.
Worse: the core spaces aren’t even telling the brand story anymore. All the identity lives in the amenities. The vibe is in the co-working lounge, the rooftop bar, the club house. But guess where we’re spending most of our actual time? The unit, the office, and the room. It’s no wonder why people don’t love their spaces.
This piece is a call to reimagine the room. Not the sizzle. The steak. Let’s go one-by-one.
01. The Apartment Unit: Life Doesn’t Fit the Floor Plan
We’ve changed the way we cook, clean, rest, work, and consume, but the unit hasn’t changed with us.
How can we evolve the unit?
Storage is sanity. Online shopping, hobbies, equipment, family life—our units need to hold more than ever. Storage isn’t an amenity. It’s infrastructure. It should be built into the experience.
Food has evolved. From meal-prep to microwave reheat, units need layouts that reflect new eating habits and waste patterns.
Devices are everywhere. Integrate power at every turn: counters, bedside tables, walls, drawers. How many times have you unplugged the lamp to plug in your USB-C laden power bank?
Work happens here. But not all work. Most people aren’t looking for a full office. They want flexible zones that support casual, focus, or hybrid use. Map the way people use their home for work. Think about providing an assist to your users via clever seating and surface space.
Lifestage matters. For many people, the graduation from studio to one bed to two to three to whatever is a reflection of their growing family. Are you just increasing square footage? Or are you accommodating the nursery? Creating space for a new couple to merge their lives? Contemplating how to make the ultimate guest room?
How do we bring brand into the unit?
Materiality: Use brand-aligned textures—stone, wood, metal, textile—to communicate warmth, grit, elegance, restraint, or eccentricity…whatever your brand warrants.
Function: Design signature millwork or built-ins that serve a purpose and tell a story.
Lighting: Use dimmers, sconces, and daylight orientation to support moods that match your brand: energizing, serene, cozy, creative.
Emotional cues: If your brand is about optimism, your unit should feel like morning. If it’s about sophistication, it should feel curated.
Here’s the reality: If your unit doesn’t work for how we actually live now, it doesn’t matter how stylish your rooftop is. People are going to leave if they can’t effectively operate in today’s world.
02. The Office: A Museum to Pre-2020
People don’t come to the office for desk time. They come for connection, flow, clarity, culture…and of course to badge-in because their bosses make them. Yet, most office designs still treat the actual workspace like a storage facility for employees.
Here’s how to make an office less DMV and more Apple:
Activity-based planning. Design with zones that support different work modes: focus, collaboration, social, rest.
Stop white-boxing. The office isn’t a shell to be branded later. It is the brand experience. It’s critical to merge employee experience with the actual company brand…not just a neon at the entryway.
Furniture ≠ design. Curation matters, but the flow matters more. Is the space working, or just styled? How are you empowering employees to perform their functions? Coders and creators have different needs…but why are you treating them like the same people?
Hospitality is baseline now. No one wants to leave a well-appointed home to sit under fluorescent lights at a blank desk. Create a space that people want to be in by delivering services that exceed their expectations at home.
How to make the brand part of the office experience:
Materiality: Use surfaces and finishes that evoke your brand ethos—raw and real, sleek and forward, soft and grounded.
Function: Let spatial design reinforce business operations. A collaborative brand should move like a pinball machine; a high-performance firm should move like a race track.
Lighting: Create strategic lighting zones to support energy, alertness, and transitions throughout the day.
Flow: Use circulation patterns to choreograph culture, including places to bump into each other, breathe, show up, recharge.
We’re designing offices for a business model that no longer exists. At No Walls Studio, we’re just waiting for an office developer to take the reins of the future. The opportunity is massive.
03. The Hotel Room: stuck in Motel 6
Hotels talk endlessly about experience. But the room—the actual product—is often the most forgettable part. You can’t outsource hospitality to the lobby. It has to live in the room.
So what needs to change?
Make it livable. People aren’t just sleeping. They’re unpacking, stretching, scrolling, maybe even working. Make space for real routines.
Small doesn’t mean sterile. Include a smart layout, under-bed storage, built-ins, and soft partitions. Use every inch.
Create anchors. Design micro-moments where they charge their phone, pour a drink, take off their shoes, and journal in the morning.
Curate the in-room experience. From the F&B to the printed materials, every item should feel intentional. Your minibar should speak to your brand. So should the glassware, the guidebook, the lighting, and the robe.
Avoid the fake high-end trap. People can smell cheap gloss and meaningless design moves from a mile away.
How to bring brand into the room:
Materiality: The room should wear the brand—whether it’s urban grit, alpine retreat, desert minimalism, or riviera glam.
Function: Do your surfaces and furniture support what your guests are actually doing in the room? Or are they just eye candy?
Senses: Consider layered light, ambient control, even scent cues to reinforce the narrative
Scripting the stay: Think like a director. How does the guest feel as they use the space over 24 hours?
If your hotel room doesn’t make people feel anything, your brand story doesn’t matter. Go linens-to-lights with your reinvention.
Because when the room fails, everything else has to work harder. The most powerful brand moments don’t happen at the front desk or the pool bar. They happen when someone walks into a space and says, “Yes. This feels like me.”
The unit. The office. The hotel room. These are the places where your story lands—or doesn’t. If they’re forgettable, the rest is just noise.
Missed our last article? Read it now.
⊛ No Offense | Frank Englund & Chris Howell, SPX
Let’s be honest: the average fitness space is an afterthought. Whether it’s in a residential building, a private club, or a so-called wellness resort, the setup is usually the same—same cardio and weights, with the occasional moments of thoughtfulness. It’s a …
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🚨 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?
Yasss! Snaps to this - thank you for highlighting something I have been feeling, but thought was just inevitable in current design standards