Standing on a rooftop in Hong Kong during my junior year of college, I was surrounded by one of the world’s most spectacular architectural skylines. Famous architects had designed these soaring towers, each a masterpiece of engineering and aesthetics. Yet as I took in this breathtaking view, I felt unexpectedly empty.
It took me time to understand what was missing: people. From that distance, these magnificent buildings felt lifeless, disconnected from the human experience they were meant to serve. That moment shaped my entire approach to design—architecture isn’t about creating beautiful objects; it’s about creating meaningful experiences for the people who inhabit those spaces.
Today, as multifamily developers rush to add wellness amenities to their properties, I find myself thinking about that Hong Kong skyline. Too often, we’re designing spaces that look impressive on marketing materials but miss the mark on what residents actually need in their daily lives.
Wellness Beyond the Buzzword
The word “wellness” has become so overused in our industry that it has almost lost its meaning. Most developers interpret wellness as adding a fitness center, a yoga studio, or a meditation room. While these amenities have their place, true wellness in residential design goes much deeper.
To me, wellness means supporting all human cycles throughout the day. It’s about understanding what each person goes through in their daily routine and creating layers of support for different phases and activities. Some residents want to be active and social at certain times. Others need quiet, solitary spaces to recharge. The same person might need both experiences within a single day.
This is why I focus on minimizing friction points in daily life rather than simply adding more programmed spaces. Wellness isn’t just about what we build—it’s about how people feel as they move through their environment. Do they feel safe? Comfortable being themselves? Can they find the type of space they need when they need it?
The Philosophy of Intentional Voids
This understanding led me to what I call “intentional voids”—spaces that are deliberately designed to be undefined, allowing residents to shape them according to their own needs and preferences.
This doesn’t mean we’re not designing these spaces. Rather, we’re thinking carefully about how to create room for residents to define themselves and how they want to use these areas. Instead of over-curating every square foot, we provide choice and flexibility.
Consider the transition from interior to exterior spaces. Rather than prescribing exactly how residents should experience this shift, we might create areas where people can pause, turn around, or simply breathe. These moments of relief in the spatial flow give residents agency over their own experience.
This approach requires us to deeply understand human behavior. How do people actually move through spaces? What are their daily patterns? Where do they need options, and where do they need clarity? Great design starts with these questions, not with a predetermined list of amenities.
Courtesy AvalonBay Communities
Avalon West Dublin in Dublin, California: The space connection from interior to exterior.
Anticipating Change Through Human-Centric Design
Our focus on human behavior rather than trendy amenities has allowed AvalonBay to anticipate lifestyle shifts before they become industry imperatives. Take work-from-home spaces, for example.
Even before COVID transformed remote work, we recognized that residents needed flexible workspace options beyond their apartments. We weren’t responding to a pandemic, we were responding to changing lifestyle patterns we observed in our residents.
We tested different versions of work lounges across several development projects, learning what components residents actually used and what spatial configurations worked best. When the pandemic hit and remote work became universal, we already had the insights needed to quickly scale these spaces across our portfolio.
This is the power of designing for human behavior rather than market trends. Trends come and go, but fundamental human needs for choice, comfort, and control over one’s environment remain constant.
Quality Over Quantity
One of the biggest misconceptions in multifamily design is that more space automatically means better space. I’ve seen developers add amenity after amenity, thinking that quantity equals value. But residents don’t need more spaces—they need more effective spaces.
At AvalonBay, we focus on the quality of each space rather than the total square footage of amenities. This means understanding not just what spaces to create, but how they connect to each other, how they feel about inhabiting them, and how they support the full spectrum of daily activities.
We think about tactile experiences—the right materials in the right places to enhance rather than overwhelm. We consider lighting effects that accentuate spaces from the user’s perspective. We design transitions between spaces to feel intentional and comfortable.
Most important, we work holistically across disciplines. Interior design, architecture, and landscape design aren’t separate functions; they’re integrated elements of a coordinated resident experience.
Courtesy AvalonBay Communities
AVA Arts District in Los Angeles: Creating exterior spaces that users can define.
The Future of Human-Centric Design
As our industry continues to evolve, I believe the most successful developments will be those that truly understand their residents as complex human beings, not demographic categories. This means moving beyond surface-level wellness amenities to create environments that genuinely support how people want to live.
It means recognizing that the same resident might need energizing social spaces in the morning and quiet contemplative areas in the evening. It means understanding that wellness isn’t just about physical fitness. It’s about feeling comfortable, safe, and empowered in your living environment.
Most important, it means having the confidence to leave some spaces undefined, trusting residents to bring their own creativity and preferences to the places they call home.
That empty feeling I experienced looking at Hong Kong’s skyline taught me that beautiful buildings without human connection are just expensive sculptures. Our job as designers isn’t to create impressive amenity lists. Instead, it’s to create homes where people can thrive in all the complex, varied ways that make us human.
When we get that right, the architecture takes care of itself.
