About Future of Belonging
Future of Belonging is a research-driven practice focused on one of the defining challenges of modern life: the quiet erosion of belonging.
Modern lifestyles are optimized for flexibility, efficiency, and individual freedom. We work remotely. We move more often. We rely on digital systems to replace physical ones. In the process, many of the structures that once supported human connection have disappeared.
Belonging did not vanish because people stopped caring. It eroded because systems stopped supporting it.
Future of Belonging exists to understand why this is happening—and how belonging can be rebuilt intentionally: not emotionally, but structurally.
This work helps spaces and organizations reduce isolation, strengthen participation, and turn everyday contact into real connection—so people return, stay longer, and feel like they’re part of something again.
Tim Chimoy works at the intersection of two forces that shape belonging more than anything else: the design of spaces and the design of community. He helps turn “nice-looking” places into living environments—where people stay longer, talk to each other, and come back. A hotel lobby that feels empty. A team that doesn’t connect. A coworking space that’s just desks and coffee. These aren’t motivation problems—they’re design problems, and they’re solvable.
Belonging is not a feeling. It is infrastructure.
Most approaches treat belonging as a soft topic—culture, engagement, or wellbeing. Future of Belonging takes a different view: belonging emerges when physical and social systems are designed to support it over time.
We focus on three connected layers:
Spatial design: how layout, transitions, and visibility shape behavior
Social systems: how roles, rules, and repeatability create safety and participation
Rituals and rhythm: how shared anchors turn contact into connection
When these layers work together, belonging becomes stable. When they’re missing, isolation grows—even in places full of people.
Future of Belonging sits at the intersection of architecture, psychology, community building, and the future of work, combining experience from hospitality and workplace design with building long-term membership communities. Beautiful design alone isn’t enough. Community without structure doesn’t scale.
This work is for places and organizations where connection matters but no longer happens automatically—coworking spaces, hospitality and co-living operators, real estate developers, post-remote organizations, and municipalities.
The goal isn’t to motivate people to connect more. It’s to design environments where connection happens naturally, repeatedly, and sustainably—because belonging drives retention, loyalty, and resilient communities.
Belonging is not nostalgia. It is future infrastructure.
Spatial design
how layout, transitions, and visibility shape behavior
Three connected layers
Social systems
how roles, rules, and repeatability create safety and participation
Rituals and rhythm
how shared anchors turn contact into connection