Gensler Design Forecast 2024

As we enter 2024, we continue to ask how we can help our clients thrive in times of crisis and change. Economic pressures, geopolitical volatility, climate change, the workplace reset, inclusivity, and the continuing need to manage aging buildings and stranded assets remain top of mind for real estate and building industry leaders. We believe design has an enormous role to play for our clients — and for the world today. As a discipline, it is unique in its ability to solve problems and create results. Using systems thinking and a compassionate understanding of people’s needs and expectations, designers can make sense of complex challenges to create lasting solutions. Design also represents hope and healing. As war, social injustice, climate change, and health crises grow more acute, people desperately want more connection and community. In places like Ukraine, where Gensler is working with the mayors of Mariupol and Irpin to rebuild their cities, people are looking to design to help them create a future that turns the page on a violent past and honors the people and places they loved before the invasion. This is the impact design can offer. It is a universal language that can build common ground and make a positive impact.

Design for a Radically Changing World: As the world’s most innovative design firm, we see first-hand the transformation that design can make on the human experience. Nowhere is this truer than in the world’s cities in which we work. Today, more people are living in cities than anywhere else on the planet. Cities are complex, and the impacts of any single issue can affect tens of millions of people. We urgently need to redesign our cities, rethink how people connect, and address mobility problems, climate change, infrastructure, and housing. The past few years have also taught us that the only way to make real impact happen is to inspire and take the lead to help people see a future that’s more compelling and exciting than the past. This is why we wrote our book, Design for a Radically Changing World. We wanted to capture the idea that by uniting creativity, imagination, and innovation, we use design to drive positive change. Design for a Radically Changing World shows the impact of design on our everyday lives and offers innovative solutions for the most challenging issues we face.