Resimercial Design: The Future of Commercial Spaces

What is Resimercial Design?

For the past year, I’ve been watching two of my downtown high-rises, built in the sixties, go through renovations. Both have lobbies with floor to ceiling dark marble slab, bathrooms with small tan tiles, tan stalls, and formica counters. The entrances are utilitarian, ostentatious, and the restrooms make you feel like you’re back in your dingy high school bathrooms. Months later, I see more carpet, soft modular seating in bold colors, new modern light fixtures, and dark walls being replaced with natural wood accents and light tones. One of those buildings has even added a state-of-the-art gym and a tenant lounge with bar seating, flat screens, and sectionals. Now when I enter these buildings, I experience a completely different, much more inviting atmosphere. This is resimercial design and, until now, I had no idea there was a name for it.

The office environment of the past is trying to update itself to attract the new generation of tenants by creating welcoming spaces that are inspired by residential design. Whereas I grew up in work environments that reflect practicality and function, the millennial generation wants an office environment to reflect comfort and fun. By combining sleekness and warm inspiring colors with home features such as comfortable seating and natural accents you get “resimercial”. Once just a trend, on its 50th anniversary, NeoCon made this a legitimate design movement. If you can, I highly recommend attending NeoCon’s annual event, which has over a million square feet of showroom for the world’s commercial design manufacturers, dealers, architects, designers, end-users, design organizations, and media.  Like the Superbowl is to football, NeoCon is the super event for commercial design.

Great News for Interiorscapers

Already, I’ve seen an increase in my business with this trend.  After all, what makes a space feel more homey and inviting than plants? The tenant lounge that one of my clients installed, while bright and modern, needed foliage to soften the edges and bring in that “you’re-at-home” feeling. I created two orchid bowls using the oval chalk white Wolcott container and four table planters using the sleek Franklin planter in chalk white with artificial grass. The modern white containers maintain the clean, updated look of the space, while the live and artificial foliage adds the warmth of nature. My client is very happy especially since the tenants have been very positive about the new space. That’s always the best sign, as an interiorscape designer, you have succeeded at incorporating nature with your client’s interior design. To achieve the resimercial look, my advice is to search for modern containers that have a variety of warm/bold colors, paired with plants that have unique foliage, clean lines such as succulents, zambifolia or topiaries.  

Growing with the Movement

Once you figure out the right container and foliage for the resimercial style, there are many more opportunities out there to come. Since NeoCon has established this design, most likely, any client you have that is in the middle or planning renovations will be acquiring this look. This is your opportunity to show them how adding interesting foliage and containers is the finishing touch to the resimercial style. Unfortunately for us, plants are usually the last part of any remodel, which generally makes us the last to learn about renovation plans. Even if you don’t think a client has any desire to change, there could be future plans only known to a select few, or you may even inspire a company change by exposing them to this mix of office and home design. It’s companies that plan for the future, and want to attract the next generation who will invest in making their office environments attractive.  

Nature’s Big Advantage

With millennials demanding more, explaining the health benefits of live plants in the office is a big advantage to using our services. NeoCon agrees that today’s office environments need to promote employee health just as much as aesthetics. Whenever a client is about renovating or moving into a new space, I always remind them of all the toxins such as formaldehyde and benzene they can’t see but are breathing in from new paint, carpet, and wood furniture, which can cause several health issues. To really make my point, I comment about the new paint or carpet smell and how it’s really a combination of all those harmful chemicals your employees and clients are inhaling every day. Putting live foliage in your space is going to clean the air, give employees more oxygen to concentrate and help regulate the moisture levels which benefits everyone’s respiratory system. With aesthetics and benefits like this, what fore-thinking company wouldn’t want to invest in our horticulture services? Just ask companies like Microsoft, Google, Uber, and Yelp who are incorporating resimercial design into their work spaces and are seeing increased employee retention, productivity, and creativity.