Outlook on Design Trends 2025

From workplaces to neighborhoods, social interaction, fostering community and building social capital will be paramount in attracting people back to physical spaces in 2025. After years of fluctuating office attendance, JLL Research shows the top reasons for coming into the office for both employers and employees are around social connection and office culture. More broadly across the urban environment, positive consumer scores for Quality-of-Life were found to be significantly connected to social factors – sense of belonging, feeling able to settle down in a place, and access to amenities.

In 2025, design will focus on how real estate can support fundamental social needs and the social wellbeing of people. Thoughtfully designed social spaces that can be reconfigured for various activities will refocus on the foundations of social psychology and the importance of shared experiences in workplaces and neighborhoods.

From predictive building analytics to data-driven design tools, AI is emerging as both a driver and enabler of change across design, while the use of data, specialist analytics and predictive tools for ‘science-led design’ has been gaining traction in recent years.

The convergence of AI and ‘science-led design’ brings an exciting opportunity to design fields, not just for efficiency but for increased data integration in creative processes. This will also widen collaboration opportunities between designers and fields such as psychology, bio-medical and robotics.

‘Science-led design’ approaches bring research and data into creative processes to enhance decision-making with greater information about how a building or place might perform, or to assess the impact it will have on people or the planet.

A key driver behind this is the exponential growth of AI companies that are generating data and tools which could be leveraged in design. With global venture capital investment in Generative AI increasing from $2.3 billion in 2020 to $22.3 billion in 2023 and green building technology investment growing from $1.1 billion to $5.4 billion in the same period, we can expect AI to accelerate its influence on design in 2025.