The New Sublimity

March: New York pitches rooftop campsites

Urban camping company Bivouac NYC forms, allowing pre-booked guests to stay in temporary camps on building rooftops.

Guests register online and the location and campsite details are sent by SMS to their phones. The campsites feature a library, wifi, a small fridge and kitchen area.

Key Development: Consumers are looking to experience a sense of escapism from the mundane within the city.

November: Urban spa retreat pops up in Dutch city

To escape the noise, pollution and distractions of city life, residents often find that the only option is to pack their bags and head to the countryside for the weekend.

Studio Harm Rensink creates a sanctuary in the centre of Eindhoven to answer this need for an urban retreat.

Key Development: Brands are providing consumers with the means to relax and slow down in unconventional temporary spaces.

November: Starbucks creates a more reflective experience in Tokyo

Starbucks joins forces with design agency Nendo to create a contemplative space all about the journey of espresso and the relationship between coffee and reading.

Key Development: Concepts such as Starbucks Espresso Journey offer visitors a thoughtful and calm experience in an unbranded designed space.

April: Penguin creates a digital book that induces zen-like calm

Penguin Canada’s The Echo Project is a digital e-book designed to enhance the experience of reading. Sections of the passage induce meditative experiences for the reader.

Key Development: Digital mediums are evoking soothing, escapist environments that transport visitors from the traditional reading experience.

June: Sublime pavilion is installed in London’s Hyde Park

The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion is designed as a public space for contemplation and references the extravagant pavilions that became popular in the 18th century.

Comprising a large cylindrical structure resting on quarry stones, it appears to float and glows at night because of its translucence.

Key Development: Brands and designers are creating monumental outdoor shared spaces within the city for contemplation.

July: The Newspaper Club creates slow media

Newspaper Club introduces PaperLater, enabling consumers to print stories from the web into a personalised paper that can vary in length from eight to 24 pages.

Key Development: Creative initiatives such as PaperLater serve as a way to focus the mind when presented with the internet’s constant flow of information.

November: A new counter-opinion, the Joy of Missing Out, is emerging

Instead of hungering for more information about friends’ carefully tailored online identities, people are setting off on their own journeys of self-discovery, finding that missing out can be an ideal to strive for.

Key Development: Digitally detoxing is no longer viewed as a difficult disconnection from technology, but as a positive move, rebranded as JOMO, the Joy of Missing Out.

December: The Guardian aims to understand happiness levels with app

The Guardian has developed an app to help track the happiness levels of its users. Happy for Life aims to understand a user’s general happiness levels, as well as making recommendations to boost feelings of contentment and wellbeing. Each day for three months, users are recommended three activities, such as calling a neglected friend, learning a poem or going for a jog. On completing a task, users are asked to rate their happiness.

Key Development: Consumers continue to search for happiness as they turn away from today’s hyper-connected world through a new wave of mentoring apps.

February: Flowstate is a writing tool that uses positive friction to induce a state of creative flow in the writer.

Based on ancient writing disciplines, Flowstate forces writers to stay in the moment until they enter a state of creative flow by deleting everything if the user stops writing.

Users select the amount of time they want to write, from five to 180 minutes, and once the timer starts they are not allowed to stop. If their fingers leave the keyboard for more than five seconds, the letters begin to lose their shape, blurring like a memory until vanishing completely without a trace.

Key Development: Designers are experimenting with how to put people into more or less focused states of mind to boost their creativity, improve memory and alleviate stress in the physical and digital worlds.

February: New studios offer an accessible way into the practice of meditation and mindfulness

Forgoing languid spiritual teachings in favour of affordable, drop-in classes, studios are offering a way for busy urbanites to unplug and unwind. Mimicking the accessibility of on-demand beauty services such as Heyday and Drybar, these new meditation spots take a convenience-driven approach to meditation.

Key Development: As people look for reflection and secular spiritualism, mental wellbeing is becoming a priority as they seek new ways to combat the stresses of city life.

March: Interactive storybook app The Wide World helps children understand complex emotions

Through a unique double narrative structure, The Wide World follows Daniel, a young boy who can travel outside of his body when he falls asleep. By tilting the iPad, the reader can switch between two narrative strands that affect the course of the story. The Wide World storybook deals with complex and challenging themes such as mental illness.

Key Development: Consumers are looking to improve their mental wellbeing and a range of digital apps are emerging to enable moments of discovery and reflection.

April: Glued is an app that gamifies digital downtime for the family

Quantifying the usage of family screen time, Glued encourages families to use devices more thoughtfully by rewarding points for sticking to allotted screen time limits. It uses the principles of gaming to encourage children to compete against their siblings and parents to win pole position on a digital leader board.

Key Development: People are recognising that true mindfulness is about balance, not about setting idealistic and unachievable goals.

July: Alex Carro’s mixable, multi-use skincare range is simplifying complicated beauty rituals.

The unisex range comprises five products that can be blended together to suit a user’s individual skincare needs. The exfoliating powder, for example, can be combined with the multi-use balm to create a smoothing lip treatment.

The brand decided to simplify the line to five products, one of each type, to help remove the clutter, confusion and stress from our daily skin needs.

Key development: Consumers are rejecting bold and brash brands in favour of those that take a considered and intuitive approach.

September: A new online store dedicated to experimental cutlery and dishware has opened.

Dutch design studio Steinbeisser has collaborated with Lloyd Hotel and Cultural Embassy to create Jouw, an online store selling unusual cutlery and dishware. To re-address the rituals of dining, the cutlery and tableware puts people out of their comfort zone and encourages them to eat more slowly.

Key development: The slow and mindful approach of The New Sublimity is moving on. Now it is taking slow food and mixing it up to make it a more challenging but ultimately fulfilling experience.

October: A new app from the founders of guided meditation platform Headspace aims to help children to become more mindful.

Aimed at Generation I, born between 2000 and 2010 and who are typically regarded as rowdy and restless, the visual-first app seeks to instil a sense of calm, focus and connection in their lives through a series of mindfulness exercises.

Key development: Mindfulness is now a global phenomenon that has entered the minds and hearts of the mainstream majority.