HOW INTEGRATING THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE WILL IMPACT OUR INDUSTRY’S NEW ERA

Live-Work-Play Must Evolve to Serve the Physical AND Emotional

We aren’t too far removed from the 20th anniversary of the first two retail locations, one on each U.S. coast.

Apple was clear. It was not opening spaces to solely generate sales. It was launching EXPERIENTIAL PLACES for engaging with new things, meeting new people, and learning new skills. The tablets, watches, and laptops were merely props in the staging of their modern-day public plazas, envisioned to connect us and make us feel. 

Fifteen years later, Apple would cement its commitment to experience above all when it officially dropped “Store” from the name of its retail locations.

Today the world’s most valuable company with a market capitalization of $2.8 trillion, Apple was certainly on to something because the desire for experience isn’t limited to retail. A 2019 IWG survey shows a similar craving in the workplace, reporting that 83% of people would give up office square footage to be able to access more communal areas and built-in community. 

Less than a year after the IWG results, COVID-19 super-accelerated our EVOLVING DESIRE for the experiential. The pandemic revealed the value of walkable access to the pharmacy, grocery, or park. It also changed the value systems for many people as they reassessed their quality of life and became a part of the Great Resignation of 2021 when 47 million Americans intentionally walked away from their jobs. 

“Our collective consciousness, desires, and hearts are evolving, and the Real Estate Industry must do the same so that Live-Work-Play developments serve the physical AND EMOTIONAL needs of individuals and their Neighborhoods, Communities, and Cities.”

This is the COMMON PURPOSE that unites the best-in-class creatives of our GCO Collective. Our talent comes from both inside and OUTSIDE the Real Estate Industry to better rethink potential and reset the boundaries of possibility. (See Apple Store co-creator Ron Johnson’s impact as a self-proclaimed outsider who’d never designed a store before.)

When The Collective synergizes with our GCO System strategy as a Project-Starting Firm, we become REAL ESTATE ALCHEMISTS using a Unified Creative Vision to activate Mixed-Use Development Projects beyond their simple physical form to incorporate human feeling, emotion, and connection. This transformation of Developments from mere spaces into integrated places that Enhance the Human Experience IS the evolution of Live-Work-Play

To understand the “alchemist impact” of our NEW CATEGORY in the Real Estate Development Cycle, we can look to author Paulo Coelho and his global bestseller of the same name. Published in 1988, “The Alchemist” is Coelho’s exploration of the human experience, specifically the search for its purpose. The novel helps us understand how we can achieve the integration of the physical and emotional to Enhance the Human Experience through the Built Environment. Coelho’s words are as profound as they are simple. 

“Why do we have to listen to our hearts?” the boy asked.

“Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you will find your treasure.”

“The Live-Work-Play developments of 2030 & Beyond will evolve to Enhance the Human Experience by unlocking the treasures of our hearts’ aspirations and transforming how people reconnect with themselves, their neighbors, and the environment.”