Designing Experiences for Kids and Kidults Alike
As brands seek to expand their reach and evolve their relationships with consumers, they find themselves expanding their scope. Products are becoming stores, stores are becoming coffee shops, networks are becoming tourist attractions, and so much more. Thriving brands are thinking bigger and creating experiences that inspire movement, foster community, and evoke true emotion. (Read more on this idea in our recent article Beyond Experience: Why Retail Needs a PLUS.)
We invite you to tour ROAMAD, our placemaking concept design that encourages connection through cross-generational play.
The Insight
Among American Gen Z and Millennials, 73% see family time as the most important part of their lives (Pew Research, 2025) and 79% are especially interested in events that merge together multiple of their interests to create a unique experience (Eventbrite, 2025).
Despite an immense desire for play, most destinations cater to a specific age group, requiring constant compromise from families. There are kid-friendly breweries and parent-friendly kid spaces, but neither really tap into the inner desires of both.
With this concept design, our team created a place where kids feel seen and grown-ups feel free. Not an escape but a moment to reconnect, to play, and to be fully present. Where every path, plate, and playful moment is an invitation to explore together.
Play is a universal language. In difficult times, it can be both a release and a form of resilience. It helps us process emotion, connect with others, and regain a sense of agency.
Play is not frivolous, it’s essential. It reminds us that we can still imagine, still create, still connect.
Margaret Kerrison, Re-imagined Worlds: Narrative Placemaking for People, Play, and Purpose. 2025.
The Big Idea
ROAMAD is shaped by the past, alive in the present, and wide open to what’s next. It recalls childhood wonder, invites pause from our everyday pace, and sets the stage for discovery.
Here, we are grounded by nature and engaged by design. Lush, layered, and full of surprises. Light, texture, and sound shape every aspect. Time bends, luring us to slow down, look closer, and feel more.
The senses awaken: laughter rising from long tables and skipping across shared benches, the rhythm of footsteps moving from sunlit patios to cozy corners inside, the scent of wood smoke and herbs drifting in the breeze. We taste, we share, we linger.
Seamlessly blending nature and nurture, ROAMAD offers zeroscaped gardens filled with local foliage. Activities and interaction points—big and small, tactile and digital—enhance the enrichment of exploration and discovery without encroaching on the organic experience.
The Execution
We can relax our minds and bodies with intention.
Natural settings reduce cortisol and tension, increasing feelings of pleasure and focus, boosting creativity and problem solving, and encouraging physical engagement and movement.
Shared experiences grow deeper roots.
When we engage in meaningful experiences around shared values, we form deeper connections. Activities where we are learning, trying new things, and working toward common goals build trust, mutual respect, intimacy, and truly lasting memories.
Dynamic food experiences fuel curiosity.
The more mindful we are about our food, the more we value and savor it. Where it came from, its flavor and nutritional profiles, and the art of how it’s prepared and presented—these are all avenues to increasing our enjoyment, entertainment, and education around food experiences.
The Call To Action
Be a place that embodies an idea. Be a brand that’s designed to reimagine itself. Be bold and daring, always acting in the interest of your audience.Designing for Resonance
When brands prioritize emotion before explanation, participation before persuasion, and feeling before function, they create more than engagement. They create meaning. And meaning is what people carry with them long after the moment ends.
At WD, we believe the most powerful brand stories are not told. They are designed. The question is not whether your brand has something to say. It is whether people can feel it. Explore our Create to Resonate campaign to discover more bold ideas shaping the future of brand and consumer connection here.