The places we long for
A few weeks ago, I was invited to speak at an out-of-town conference. Since it meant a long drive, I asked two friends to come along so we could turn it into a quick getaway.We left a day before my talk, bringing our laptops so we could still catch up on work before enjoying the rest of the day at the beach.
It wasn’t one of those luxury destinations you see in travel magazines. In fact, if someone asked me today about the room, I probably couldn’t describe it very well.
But I remember the breeze. I remember sitting outside after answering a few emails, watching the tide slowly come in while people enjoyed the afternoon. Nobody seemed to be in a hurry.
On the drive home, one of us joked that we should have stayed another day. We all laughed because work was waiting the next morning. Still, I realized we weren’t wishing for another day because of the resort. We wanted another day because the place made us feel that way.
Travel is changing
As architects, we often talk about buildings. That weekend reminded me that people usually remember places.
Maybe that’s why travel has been changing. For years, luxury meant bigger rooms, grander lobbies, and longer lists of amenities. Those things still matter, but they no longer seem to be the whole story.
More and more, people are willing to drive for hours just to spend a day somewhere with clean water, old trees, open skies, and enough space to breathe.
Sense of place
That got me thinking about our work in the property sector.
Developers spend a great deal of time trying to understand what buyers want. Yet every holiday and every long weekend, people quietly answer that question themselves.
They leave the city and choose destinations where they can slow down, walk rather than rush, enjoy nature rather than traffic, and experience places that still have their own identity. Maybe that is the
market research we should be paying more attention to.
One phrase I recently encountered in my sustainability studies is “sense of place.”
It sounds technical, but the idea is simple. Some places feel like they belong exactly where they are. Their architecture responds to the climate instead of fighting it. Local materials don’t feel decorative but rather natural. The landscape isn’t treated as leftover space after construction, but as part of the experience.
Good architecture
Ironically, these are the same qualities that have always defined good architecture.
I also find it interesting that the developments people admire most are not always the ones that build the most. Sometimes, they are the ones who know when to stop.
A cluster of mature trees is left standing. The shoreline remains open instead of being lined entirely with buildings. Walking paths become more important than additional parking spaces. Nature is allowed to do what no architect or developer can ever fully recreate.
That is no less development. It is better development.
Tomorrow’s communities
I think this is where tourism and property unexpectedly meet. The places
people willingly visit today are quietly becoming the places they hope to live in tomorrow.
Buyers are no longer looking only at floor areas or amenities. They are also looking for healthier environments, shaded streets, walkable communities, and neighborhoods with a character of their own. They want developments that feel connected to where they are, rather than looking like they could have been built anywhere.
Perhaps the biggest lesson from that short beach trip wasn’t about travel at all.
It was a reminder that people rarely fall in love with concrete. They fall in love with places—with the breeze that finds its way through the trees, the sound of waves before sunrise, the comfort of walking without having to think about traffic, and the feeling that a place still remembers what it was before it was developed.
Maybe that is where the future of development begins—not with asking how much more we can build, but with understanding what people have been quietly longing for all along.
The author is a LEED Fellow, ASEAN Architect, UAP Fellow, and educator with over 25 years of professional practice in architecture and sustainability
