In the built environment, walls have long been treated as passive backdrops—surfaces to decorate, protect, or brand. But a quiet transformation is underway. As designers, manufacturers, and clients increasingly prioritize human well-being alongside environmental performance, wallcovering is being reimagined as an active contributor to health. At the center of this shift is salutogenic design—an approach rooted in the idea that spaces should support our capacity to thrive, not merely reduce harm. Originally developed by medical sociologist Aaron Antonovsky, salutogenesis reframes how we think about health. Instead of focusing on disease (a pathogenic model), it emphasizes the “origins of health”—the resources,...

AUSTIN, TEXAS—1 Hotels, the mission-driven luxury lifestyle brand founded by Barry Sternlicht, is now accepting reservations for 1 Hotel Austin, an urban sanctuary in the creative heartbeat of Texas. With an anticipated opening in August 2026, 1 Hotel Austin is set at the meeting point of Waller Creek and Lady Bird Lake and anchors the 74-story Waterline, the tallest tower in the state. Developed by Lincoln Property Company and Kairoi Residential, the extraordinary mixed-use development reconnects the city to its natural waterways and transforms a previously neglected area into a thriving corridor. Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF) designed the building, with HKS Architects...

NATIONAL REPORT—New insights from transformative technology provider, Amadeus, have revealed modern travel is increasingly being used as a mental health reset, not just as a leisure activity. New research project, Travel Dreams 2026: From data to delight, finds many travelers are prioritizing having a “refreshed brain” alongside “finding a new version of themselves” and “greater confidence and independence”. Some 41 percent of the 6,000 travelers surveyed aspire to return from a trip with a calmer nervous system, while a third of them describe an ideal destination as one where they are inspired to digitally detox because the world around them...

BANGKOK, THAILAND—Six Senses announces the signing of Six Senses Beijing, which will open in the Haidian District of China’s capital. The hotel management agreement with Beijing Zhongguancun Avenue Construction & Development Group forms part of the thoughtful renewal of Liulangzhuang, now emerging as a center for cultural programming and international exchange. Within it, the Three Hills and Five Gardens heritage landscape is long associated with the Summer Palace and the imperial retreats of the Qing dynasty. Neil Palmer, Chief Operating Officer, Six Senses, said: “Six Senses has always sought destinations with a strong story. The setting for Six Senses Beijing is extraordinary....

RODNEY BAY, ST. LUCIA—TheLifeCo, the internationally recognized medical wellness and detox brand founded over two decades ago with flagship destinations in Turkey (Bodrum, Antalya, Uludağ), Egypt and Thailand, embarks on its next chapter: its foray into the Caribbean with TheLifeCo St. Lucia, a 100-key purpose-built physician-led longevity destination designed from the ground up around detox and transformation programs. Setting a new standard for wellness tourism, TheLifeCo St. Lucia reimagines the traditional Caribbean escape as a structured wellness retreat, where guests come not just to unwind, but to actively transform their health. TheLifeCo St. Lucia brings advanced diagnostics and cutting-edge technology and therapies, many of...

SEATTLE—Hightower has launched its dedicated portal on Ecomedes, a leading sustainability intelligence platform for the built environment. Available now at hightower.ecomedes.com, the portal gives architects, interior designers, dealers, and project teams instant access to comprehensive sustainability and environmental performance data across the entire Hightower product catalog at no cost. The Ecomedes partnership represents the next step in Hightower’s ongoing commitment to building an industry-leading digital toolkit for customers. Following the company’s integration with Configura’s Commercial Interiors Library and Aline and Spec platforms last year, in addition to Cyncly’s Worksheet, Ecomedes extends that same customer-first philosophy into the sustainability space, giving project teams...

NEW YORK—Clearwater PACE, the institutional Commercial Property Assessed Clean Energy (C-PACE) principal lending platform backed by an up- to-$300 million capital vehicle from Ares Management, announced the closing of a $33 million C-PACE financing for Ameyalli Wellbeing Resort, a luxury wellness destination under ground-up development near Park City, Utah. The financing is structured as a long-tenor, fixed-rate, senior-secured obligation collected as a line item on the property tax bill, senior to all property debt other than real estate taxes. The proceeds will fund a defined scope of energy efficiency measures embedded in the project’s construction budget. The C-PACE tranche closed...

KAUAI, HAWAII—1 Hotel Hanalei Bay announces the debut of Nature’s Wellness Sanctuary, a trailblazing wellness concept on the North Shore of Hawaii’s most magical island, the Garden Island of Kauai. Opened in 2023, 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay is the Hawaiian flagship for 1 Hotels, the mission-driven luxury lifestyle brand founded by Barry Sternlicht. Nature’s Wellness Sanctuary marks a significant evolution in the brand’s philosophy of living a life in balance with nature, wellness, nutrition, and fitness. The program brings together serious strength training, advanced recovery, cutting-edge diagnostics, and restorative spa therapies, with the healing power of the natural world. “1...

MIAMI—The Global Wellness Institute, in partnership with the Associação Portuguesa de Ética Empresarial (APEE), has published its first research on Portugal’s wellness economy, reporting that the sector reached $21.0 billion in 2024. This accounts for 6.8 percent of Portugal’s GDP, above the global average of 6.1 percent. Portugal’s wellness tourism sector recorded 2.49 million inbound wellness trips in 2024, surpassing the pre-pandemic 2019 level of 2.05 million trips. Visitors spent an average of $1,349 per trip. Per capita wellness spending in Portugal reached $1,961, exceeding the European average of $1,876. The country’s largest wellness sectors are wellness tourism at $5.1 billion,...

MIAMI—The Global Wellness Institute (GWI), the leading nonprofit dedicated to research and education in the global wellness industry, has released new data on the United States’ fast-growing wellness economy, now valued at $2.1 trillion. The findings, made possible through a partnership with Fountain Life, show that the U.S. remains the undisputed leader in the global wellness economy, dwarfing other top markets. Growing at an annual rate of 7.9 percent from 2019 to 2024, the U.S. ranks among the 10 fastest-growing wellness markets worldwide and holds the largest market share in nine of eleven wellness sectors. Wellness economy per capita spending in the U.S. surpassed...