A spatial experience is a multi-sensorial and simultaneous experience that involves built environments, people, context and purposes and is capable of enhancing emotional connection within space. A spatial experience condenses a complex assessment of atmosphere, feeling and ambience, together with a set of specific personal evaluations, that are then translated into a judgment concerning the nature and character of the space being experienced. In fact, people are able to grasp the atmosphere in a built environment before consciously identifying the elements that create that atmosphere, which highlights the power of positive spatial experiences. When entering a new space, one can be emotionally and mentally impacted by the architecture, art work and all of its elements even before understanding the architect’s or artist’ intention, for example.
It is possible to intuit emotive and experiential elements of spaces and their components when creating a built environment. From interior design to signage, a real estate project can create spatial experiences with sensory and atmospheric qualities that not only communicates a brand personality and feeling, but fosters emotional connections between users and space. In this sense, creating purposeful spatial experiences brings the utmost value for all stakeholders involved in real estate development.
The Business of Experiences
Western societies have been living a shift from a superficial, consumerist culture to an experience driven culture, a change that has been driven mainly by millennials since the beginning of the last decade. Studies have shown that experiential purchases bring more happiness to consumers than material ones and that people are increasingly focused on experiencing rather than owning. As people continuously seek for personal improvement and to try things they never did before, we see ourselves living in a post-materialistic society that is affecting the foundation of the global business offerings by placing experiences at a higher level.
The experience economy requires businesses to reflect on how their services and products create value and support their consumer in achieving their goals. The intangible character of experiences creates a challenge for most industries as it is often hard to grasp what are the necessary requirements to design a product or service that provokes or enables a desirable experience. To attend to this new demand, disciplines such as “Experience Design”, “User Experience Design” and “Service Design” have emerged.
Why Experience Design makes good Business Sense
A captivating spatial experience created by mindful design is not only good for users; it is good for business as well. Incorporating experience design into real estate developments generates engaging spaces where people would like to live and spend time, and such developments turn into financially successful spaces that help placemaking within cities and reduce living challenges.
A vast majority of our time is spent in built environments, which highlights the need to understand how humans respond to purposefully designed spaces. Experience design seeks to understand the end users to anticipate their needs when designing spaces, therefore enabling occupants to achieve their purpose. Enhancing the quality of spatial experiences is at the core of real estate experience design.
To understand the value of experiences to real estate — or any other industry — it is important to distinguish between the concepts of company and brand. A company is an organisation that fabricates products or services, whilst a brand is the expression of a company’s personality and image that is translated into its products and services; a brand is built through consumer perceptions and expectations. Therefore, experiences are not created by companies, but by brands. Smart brands add the value of experience to every step of the consumer journey and ensure ROI: strong brand recognition, emotional binding with consumers and overall LTV (long time value).
The Role of Developers
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Originally published at www.spatial-experience.com.
