Sure, there are the New Yr’s traditions of setting bold objectives and ditching unhealthy habits, however one evergreen decision that must prime lists is to banish unhealthy design. Why endure one thing that merely doesn’t work (or is an affront to aesthetics) any longer than we have now to?
Within the spirit of recent begins, we polled specialists in structure, tech, industrial design, and urbanism on the on a regular basis annoyances and the big-picture points that they suppose are in determined want of a refresh in 2026. (High on my private record? Eye-searing headlights.)
Design is inherently an optimistic act, and by fixing these points, we’re a step nearer to a extra lovely and higher world.
Information Facilities
Information facilities are the significant buildings of the moment, and we have now a accountability to make them a part of our cities as they’re actually powering the longer term. The buildings must carry out on the highest technical stage, however in addition they want to attach and reply to a way of place and to the group round it. For instance, we designed a knowledge middle with a facade that has an intricate sample language that feels extra like a theater or civic constructing and different facilities with mass timber, which lends heat and sweetness to the construction whereas additionally bringing a sustainability story to the construction.
Each knowledge middle venture of ours now begins with considering via resilient methods, together with lowering or eliminating evaporative cooling and integrating next-generation considering on power utilization. On the identical time, there are individuals nonetheless working in these buildings and there must be consideration for the office as nicely. It’s about expertise plus individuals, and we will’t ignore the human aspect of this as a result of recruitment and retention are nonetheless key concerns.
It’s additionally fascinating to consider what to do in a very dense city surroundings. We’re concerned in conversion initiatives that take ageing, underutilized workplace buildings and discover vertical blended use. It’s not nearly changing workplace to residential, which we’re doing in lots of places. Can you are taking an ageing workplace constructing and a part of its reuse turns into a knowledge middle? In 2026, we’ll see extra of a world dialogue from an actual property standpoint on city alternatives that features occupied with knowledge facilities vertically.
—Jordan Goldstein, Co-CEO of Gensler
Crossover and Compact SUVs
Dwelling in Los Angeles, I’m surrounded by vehicles all day. I’m all the time disenchanted by how homogenous so many archetypes are. Crossover and compact SUVs are all so related that you would swap the badges on any of them, and nobody would know the distinction between the manufacturers.
Sadly, over the past decade the identical may be stated of most sports activities automobiles. All the key manufacturers have adopted the extensive rear physique of the [Porsche] 911, and for no cause; their engines are within the entrance of the automobile and don’t demand the steadiness and width to steadiness the load that sits on the rear wheels of the 911.
Each model has an origin story, and plenty of of their older iconic automobiles have been based mostly on unique concepts. As not too long ago because the ‘90s, automobile manufacturers held a novel design language. Prior to now, the one market that had homogeneous design was the Soviet Union. Our tradition is predicated on differentiation available in the market, the place prospects have selections. As we speak we lack actual selection.
This all factors to a scarcity of imaginative and prescient and conservative management on the main automakers. There isn’t a risk-taking, and the client is given a design that’s the results of market analysis reasonably than innovation and design. This ought to be a precedence as a result of it instills poor values—lack of originality, fear-driven enterprise technique, zero risk-taking—on the constructed surroundings and our tradition.
—Jonathan Olivares, Artistic Director of Knoll
Information Possession
Each time we swipe our MetroCard, go to a health care provider, purchase groceries, or scroll via our telephones, we’re creating knowledge. However we virtually by no means get to see it to grasp ourselves higher. The information flows in a single course solely, from us into programs which can be used to optimize operations and algorithms and practice fashions. What if as an alternative our knowledge may come again to us in a type that may assist us see the patterns in our lives and perceive our personal tales? I wish to redesign this elementary relationship.
The problem is that knowledge has turn out to be the language that we have to navigate life however we haven’t been taught to talk it; and the interfaces that would assist us study are designed for directors and quarterly experiences solely, hardly ever for precise individuals attempting to grasp their very own lives. Think about getting dwelling from a health care provider’s appointment and receiving an exquisite comprehensible visualization of your well being over time, the place you possibly can see patterns you didn’t know existed. That is the kind of context that may assist us ask higher questions on our well being.
Or think about your transit system revealing the mundane rhythms of your personal life again to you (the espresso store you all the time cease at on Tuesdays, the routes you are taking whenever you’re confused versus calm). This may shut the literacy hole by making knowledge understandable within the moments when it issues most with out dumbing down complexity and nuances. I’ve spent my profession proving we will do that. Higher design right here means extra company. It means individuals who can advocate for themselves. It means closing the hole between those that can converse knowledge and people who can’t.
—Giorgia Lupi, Companion at Pentagram
AI Interfaces
I’m excited to see how groups rethink and redesign person interfaces for an AI-native world. As we speak, we’re nonetheless within the MS-DOS period of AI the place each immediate, each agent, and each rising modality is, for probably the most half, a protracted textual content response in a conversational interface. My prediction is that in 2026, we’ll see a shift towards richer, extra dynamic interfaces the place each inputs and outputs evolve far past textual content.
It’s not stunning that AI person interfaces started as chatbots. Giant language fashions function on tokens, and textual content is the quickest, least expensive medium to construct, debug, and consider. However many years of software program and interface design have made one thing clear: people don’t suppose in language alone. We expect spatially. We perceive via movement, distinction, hierarchy, and causality, and our intuition is to behave via direct manipulation, not simply typed instructions.
As AI capabilities evolve, design is extra vital than ever. Visible interfaces aren’t going away, and neither is the necessity to see, form, and refine concepts as we work. Designers have a uncommon likelihood to outline the foundations and patterns of this new interface period, shaping what work, play, and productivity will seem like for many years to return.
—Loredana Crisan, Chief Design Officer of Figma
Materials Labeling
When anybody (architects, purchasers, contractors) walks right into a big-box retailer, it could be transformative to see a Nutri-score or Local Law 33 energy grade for supplies, however for wooden specifically because it’s so broadly used. A greater system would deal with wooden like meals, with clear, standardized materials labeling. It’s best to be capable of see the place the wooden comes from, virtually like shopping for eggs whenever you’re confronted with this wall of various ranges of hen torture.
Materials provide chains wrestle with standardization and transparency for a lot of causes, however for my part, it’s as a result of shoppers didn’t know they need to be demanding it. For instance, as soon as it turned clear that Quartz counter tops have been inflicting silicosis by these chopping the fabric, shoppers have been horrified. A lot in order that the Australian authorities made the fabric unlawful. The issue is big-box retailers, the place most wooden is bought, hardly ever floor this info, regardless of sometimes stocking high-quality or responsibly sourced materials hidden in plain sight.
Larger transparency on the level of buy would empower individuals to make extra exact selections about a complete host of values which can be vital to them. Once I stroll right into a field retailer, I wish to know which 2xs are Code A (regeneratively cultivated via strategies of land conservation and restore by a neighborhood inside 100 miles who has been traditionally disenfranchised) or Code B (selectively harvested and replanted by a fifth era land and sawmill proprietor utilizing Indigenous cool burning to forestall forest fires) or Code C (small batch monocultures grown at excessive effectivity to forestall the alternative of biodiverse unproductive forests), and many others.
—Lindsey Wickstrom, Architect and Founding Principal of Mattaforma
Outside Lighting
How about all of us begin taking a neighborly strategy to out of doors lighting?
When colleagues and pals speak to me about lighting, they used to say fantastic competition lights they’d simply seen or lamps they appreciated or hated. However nowadays they largely complain about mild streaming into their home windows from another person’s out of doors lighting.
Within the metropolis, a new commercial tower in midtown streams always altering mild into bed room home windows actually miles away. Entertaining for some, apparently, and intensely disruptive for others. To not point out the harm to fish and chicken habitat.
In a suburban neighborhood, unshielded lights positioned over rubbish cans to scare off raccoons are greater than an eyesore. On a movement sensor, they’ll wake sleepers in close by properties each time a critter or a pedestrian passes by. Movement sensors have their functions, however unshielded lights connected to constructing exteriors flashing on and off are frankly anti-social.
For individuals who dwell by a physique of water or out deep within the countryside, it’s typically the lone ill-considered, unshielded constructing/storage mild pointing straight out that disrupts the view, the sleep of these in its path, and the wildlife.
What to do? I’d ask architects to suppose exterior their fascinating packing containers. Take a nighttime tour of the encompassing neighborhoods and look again at their constructing. Then attempt to visualize the impression their deliberate exterior lighting and built-in lighting shows might need at a distance.
It’s arduous for me to think about a lacking piece of lighting gear from our well-supplied lighting design world. What’s lacking is a change in angle. A thought for others and a few consideration for a way our selections impression different individuals and the species that encompass us. It’s not that sophisticated.
—Linnaea Tillett, Founding father of Tillett Lighting Design Associates
Sports activities Districts
Within the late ’90s and early 2000s, large-scale leisure and sports activities districts have been in-built cities throughout America. These areas have been designed with one very profitable operate in thoughts: to cater to large crowds of sparsely scheduled mega occasions. However the different a whole lot of days a 12 months, these areas sit largely empty with restricted exercise or use.
As we speak we have now a possibility to revamp these districts in order that they not solely accommodate dynamic, memorable, and secure experiences round recreation days, concert events, and conferences, but in addition help individuals who wish to sit with a espresso in the midst of a Tuesday or meet pals for a dwell efficiency, artwork class, or out of doors film screening on the weekend.
To do that, we have to introduce flexibility and luxury. Multipurpose plazas can cater to massive occasions but in addition present consolation day-to-day with furnishings and options that serve many functions. Think about a big plaza designed for a tailgating crowd but in addition designed to rework with plenty of moveable furnishings beneath a shaded tree cover for gathering on a non-event day. Stepped wood platforms can be utilized as a stage or additionally for seating or play. Extensive sidewalks with massive timber for shade and road furnishings (e.g. benches, planters, bike racks, lighting) create nice city streets whereas additionally being designed for crowd safety and safety.
As we head right into a multiyear interval of American cities getting ready for mega occasions just like the World Cup, the Olympics, and the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, designers engaged on occasion areas ought to do not forget that the motivation to rehabilitate these locations shouldn’t be both operate for giant occasions or every day life. It’s each. Enduring city areas ought to be capable of do all of it.
—Chris Merritt and Nina Chase, Founding Principals of Merritt Chase
MRIs
As we speak, getting an MRI—which is important for diagnosing life-threatening circumstances—can imply lengthy wait occasions, discomfort throughout prolonged scans, and restricted availability in low‑useful resource settings. Globally, about 70% of people have no access to MRI at all, creating large delays in prognosis and care.
For sufferers, this could translate into nervousness and late detection. For radiologists, rising volumes add to burnout. And for builders, innovation is slowed as a result of new algorithms can take weeks to deploy on scanners. A redesign of MRIs may make them quicker, extra comfy, and dramatically extra accessible.
Traditionally, MRI programs have been {hardware}‑centric and siloed, with reconstruction tied tightly to the scanner. Decrease‑value {hardware} choices exist, however their photographs are sometimes noisy or distorted. All of this creates bottlenecks: builders can’t simply check new algorithms, sufferers endure lengthy scans, and radiologists face mounting workloads. The result’s inefficiency and inequity. Superior imaging stays concentrated in nicely‑funded hospitals, whereas much less‑resourced areas typically lag many years behind.
Software program-driven approaches—like Microsoft Research’s Tyger framework, which is an open-source venture effort that I lead—present how MRI can evolve into an clever imaging system, the place cloud‑based mostly reconstruction and AI‑pushed denoising make scans quicker, extra scalable, and in the end extra equitable.
—Michael Hansen, Director & Principal Researcher, Microsoft Research, Health Futures
Accessibility that ‘Others’
I’m anticipating 2026 to be the 12 months the place actually accessible design turns into mainstream in mass-market merchandise. Not as a checkbox concept, not as a product for others, however as a value of entry baseline technique. All merchandise ought to be designed via the filter of accessibility in order that they attraction to the most important potential market phase and work for longer durations of time.
The issue is there may be a lot stigma related to ageing and incapacity and a lot of it’s as a result of the objects have all the time appeared medical they usually’ve made individuals really feel othered they usually remind us of what we will’t do. And we predict the facility of design is to interrupt down these stigmas and permit individuals to make constructive emotional connections to those objects.
As we give it some thought, everyone is disabled. There’s everlasting incapacity: you get a prognosis, you get into an accident, you become old. There’s short-term incapacity: you get a sports activities harm, you turn out to be pregnant, you’re recovering from surgical procedure. And there may be this notion of situational incapacity that just about no person thinks about: You’re exterior on a sunny day and there’s a glare so you possibly can’t see your cellphone. Otherwise you’re strolling via a grocery retailer holding a child and also you’re one-handed hastily.
All of us attempt for common design, however the actuality is there’s by no means going to be one model or a product that’s good for everyone. Nevertheless, if everyone who makes these objects is considering addressing the most important group of individuals potential, then everyone will be capable of discover the one that’s proper for them.
—Ben Wintner, CEO of Michael Graves Design
Small-Scale Parks
For many years, panorama structure has emphasised large-scale and extremely designed and programmed initiatives that take a few years and multimillion-dollar worth tags to develop. No shade to those initiatives—we are going to by no means say no to a superbly designed park—however there’s a very actual want for various sorts of publicly accessible inexperienced and backyard areas in our cities, particularly contemplating how public funding to create and keep them is changing into more and more constricted.
In relation to inexperienced house, perhaps the answer is to make many small plans as an alternative of 1 massive one. As an alternative of spending hundreds of thousands on one park website, what if we designed a community of smaller and neighborhood-scale inexperienced areas the place communities may be immediately concerned in constructing and gardening, sustaining, and caring for them?
Reasonably than going via months of rendered and CAD-ified design ideas, we may take a scrappy and interactive strategy, getting our fingers in grime and designing by doing. Use regionally acceptable and sourced plantings and supplies, repurpose what’s close to or on website, develop from seed, and discover artistic methods to show reclaimed supplies into seating, furnishings and platforms. This may scale back assets and construct in a manner that’s much less carbon-intensive and extra ecologically regenerative.
—Kasey Toomey and David Godshall, Panorama Architects and Companions at Terremoto
Clever Experiences
What most wants redesign isn’t one thing bodily; it’s the software program that shapes our properties, workplaces, and communities lengthy earlier than something is designed or constructed.
Over time, our instruments have turn out to be extremely highly effective, however they typically demand extra consideration than they need to. Because the pressures on how we dwell and construct develop extra pressing—round enhancing sustainability, affordability, and resiliency to the impacts of local weather change—we’d like software program that does greater than assist individuals work quicker. It wants to assist them make higher selections, to adapt in actual time and study from habits in an effort to anticipate wants and personalize experiences.
As we transfer into the agentic period, the taking part in subject is altering quick. I’ve seen how simply consideration will get pulled towards managing instruments as an alternative of weighing the alternatives that actually matter: carbon impression, value, livability, and long-term efficiency. When that occurs, good intentions get buried beneath course of.
The actual promise of AI isn’t automation for its personal sake; it’s constructing with intention. Think about a world the place a person can merely speak, describe what they wish to construct, then be offered with options, and quickly ideate on their concepts with out ever having to make use of their keyboard or mouse. These capabilities are right here.
Used responsibly, AI can scale back friction, floor the precise concerns on the proper second, and let designers and planners concentrate on outcomes reasonably than mechanics. A greater-designed future is one the place expertise steps out of the highlight and helps higher selections turn out to be the default, not the exception.
—Heather McIntosh Cassano, Vice President, Consumer Expertise, AEC Options at Autodesk
