Compact Luxury – AXOR x The Future Laboratory: Exploring The Future of Urban Living

Together with one of the leading international consulting firms on future trends, The Future Laboratory, AXOR has dedicated itself to the topic of ‘Compact Luxury’, exploring the megatrend of urbanization.

The aim is to bring architects and interior designers into exchange to gain new ideas, insights and inspiration for a new meaning of luxury in the urban environment. By 2050, two in three people will inhabit a megacity. Already, living spaces are shrinking as outside stresses grow, fueling the demand for an ever-higher quality of life inside the home. A private oasis amid the bustle of the city, the home is expected to offer areas not only for socializing and entertaining but for restoring one’s sense of well-being. Focus is shifting to personal spaces of retreat and revitalization, such as the bathroom.

Creating Meaning and Enhancing Spaces

“What can architects and interior designers do not just to optimize these spaces but to enhance them? To infuse them with character, meaning and soul? To deliver on the very personal perception of what luxury is for each and everybody? These are the questions we are exploring with this project”, Anke Sohn, Head of AXOR Brand Marketing explains.

While the solutions are many, one thing is clear: The new urban luxury is not measured only in square meters. It is conveyed by archetypal designs that endure, expressing one’s individuality while fulfilling the desire to live consciously, holistically, harmoniously. It is reflected in the quality of one’s private time, the satisfaction in performing one’s personal rituals, and the sense of well-being that ensues.

In partnership with the London-based The Future Laboratory, one of the leading international consulting firms for future trends, AXOR uncovers the major influences of urbanization, which are having a deep and lasting impact on the way we think about our ever-shrinking living spaces in the city of the future.

Three Trends

The Compact Luxury Report unpacks three major trends driving the new notion of Compact Luxury. Liberated Living: how a boundaryless mindset is emerging among consumers, driven by a desire for flexibility. Immaterial Affluence: how consumers are forgoing traditional markers of wealth, embracing increasingly immaterial forms of luxury instead. Conscious Wellbeing: how consumer concern around urban living is driving a desire for spaces that support individual and collective wellbeing. The report can be downloaded on: