Uncommon Creativity Podcast - Episode One
↑ Listen to the podcast introduction or read the full research below.
The Residences That Refuse to Stand Still
There is a myth that homes are only ever places to return to, that their purpose is to contain life rather than expand it. Cities swell and press inward, their streets dense with movement, yet the master plans of large-scale residential developments remain static, unwavering in their purpose: to provide housing, and little more.
But what if the city were to follow you home? What if the weight of experience—the pull of a well-placed restaurant, the hum of a bar as the night leans in, the quiet indulgence of hotel comforts—was woven into the very foundation of where we live?
The standard playbook of mass residential design is simple: cluster housing, sprinkle in retail, add a ‘green corridor’ and a gym, then market it as ‘vibrant.’ It is a formula of compliance rather than character, a system of zoning that ensures functionality at the expense of feeling. The result? Developments that operate as dormitories rather than destinations—places to sleep, not places to be.
Yet, the appetite for locality has changed. The reliance on the city’s gravitational pull is waning. People no longer wish to commute for experience; they expect it to be proximate, effortless, embedded. The consequence is clear: residential developments can no longer afford to be passive. They must host.
To host is not merely to provide space but to cultivate presence. In master planning, this means a deliberate fusion of hospitality and housing—not an afterthought, not an add-on, but a guiding principle. It aligns with the principles of the 15-minute city, a concept that dismantles the outdated model of zoning in favour of hyper-local connectivity.
Originally articulated by urbanist Carlos Moreno, the 15-minute city reimagines urban life as a seamless, walkable experience—where work, leisure, culture, and commerce exist within a 15-minute radius. It is a model of immediacy. A rejection of transit dependency. A shift from ‘destination cities’ to inhabitable cities. For mass residential developments, this means embedding experience within proximity.
Restaurants that set the tempo of a street, a hotel folded into the urban fabric, members’ clubs that sit at the intersection of public and private. A neighbourhood that doesn’t just accommodate but welcomes, entices, retains.
For decades, the model has been compartmentalised. Hospitality belongs to the hotel district. Dining and entertainment are corralled into high streets or shopping centres. Residential spaces exist in neatly walled-off sections, shielded from the life they claim to embrace. The result? A disjointed urban landscape where movement is not a choice but a necessity—where people must travel to engage with their city rather than feel it instinctively around them.
The alternative is seamlessness. Streets animated by curated hospitality—not retail placeholders, but independent restaurants, cultural venues, intimate hotels that act as social anchors. Public spaces that extend beyond benches and tree-lined paths, drawing from the fluidity of a well-designed lobby or the intimate scale of a private members’ lounge. Concierge services that stretch beyond hotel guests, integrating into the daily lives of residents.
This is not about adding amenities. It is about reconfiguring the rhythm of urban life within residential developments.
If a city is structured to be lived in, then a visitor should not feel like a transient body moving through it, but like someone stepping into an already unfolding narrative. In hospitality-led residential developments, hotels are no longer separate entities but part of a seamless continuum of experience. Guests exit a lobby and immediately belong—not funnelled towards tourist enclaves, but into a living neighbourhood where streets are alive with the same pulse that residents feel every day.
This is where hospitality redefines itself—not as a sector, but as a system of integration. When a visitor arrives at a well-placed hotel within a master-planned neighbourhood, the lines blur:
The café where locals linger becomes their breakfast spot.
The neighbourhood bookshop replaces the generic hotel gift shop.
The park designed for everyday use becomes a morning ritual rather than an overlooked green space.
This is not about placemaking in the superficial sense. This is about crafting environments that function at multiple levels—for the resident, the passer-through, the regular visitor who feels no distinction between home and hotel.
The expectation has shifted. Residential developments that ignore the call to host will fall into irrelevance, their spaces relegated to transience, their streets devoid of impulse. The modern master plan is no longer just a blueprint for living—it is a manifesto for experience, a commitment to locality, a refusal to be merely ‘home.’
Because the places that endure are the ones that understand a simple truth: people do not just want to live somewhere. They want to belong to it.
The spaces we inhabit are no longer static. They are fluid, responsive, evolving. So why should the way we design them remain the same? At Vacancy Bureau, we explore the boundaries between hospitality, urbanism, and experience—challenging conventional models to shape spaces that don’t just house, but host. To discuss how these ideas could inform your next project, or to explore the intersections of design, culture, and identity in urban life, connect with us. Through Uncommon Creativity, we rethink what it means to belong. Discover more →
