CASE STUDIES
Crafted to shift, shape, and build culture.
The In-Between
The In-Between is a speculative recovery and training sanctuary exploring how global brands can design for the moments between effort and rest.
Rather than centering performance alone, this concept reframes recovery as cultural infrastructure — something that supports people long before injury, burnout, or decline.
Designed through the lens of Nike, the project imagines how institutional scale, design, and health-forward thinking can intersect to serve people more holistically.
Why Nike
Nike is uniquely positioned to lead an initiative like The In-Between due to its longstanding role at the intersection of performance, culture, and scale.
For decades, Nike has built credibility around the body in motion—not only through product innovation, but through cultural influence, community engagement, and narrative leadership. Across professional athletics and everyday movement, Nike has shaped how people understand effort, discipline, and physical potential.
What remains less explored is the space between movement and recovery: the period in which the body stabilizes, the nervous system resets, and long-term physical sustainability is determined.
With its global reach, cultural trust, and institutional resources, Nike is positioned to address this gap without reframing its core identity. Nike does not need to introduce the importance of the body to its audience; that foundation already exists. This concept extends Nike’s established focus on performance toward supporting continuity, longevity, and recovery.
Cultural Context: People, Power, and Care
When we talk about health, we often discuss it reactively. Yet prevention, recovery, and long-term care are deeply tied to access, not just awareness.
Class disparities, institutional buying power, and humanity are not separate conversations.
Brands serve people.
People shape culture.
Culture influences systems.
This cycle is visible in parallel examples:
Streetwear and subculture communities became global fashion forces.
Music movements born in local scenes shaped global industries.
Community-driven sports and fitness trends have redefined athletic culture.
In each case, people and culture precede corporate scale.
The Opportunity: Health as Preventative Infrastructure
Initiatives like The In-Between are designed to serve people through preventative and long-term care, using health as the vehicle rather than a luxury service.
This is not wellness as lifestyle, but recovery as infrastructure.
Today, access to physically supportive spaces and recovery resources is strongly stratified by income and geography. For example:
Only about 24% of U.S. adults meet recommended federal guidelines for both aerobic and muscle-strengthening activity — with lower participation among people with lower income levels.
Physical activity and healthy movement are correlated with income, illustrating how access disparities translate into health behavior disparities.
Population health and wellbeing are under strain across generations, with widening disparities:
Gen Z and Millennials report significantly higher rates of stress, fatigue, and related mental health challenges compared to older generations, including elevated rates of depressive symptoms.
Across racial and ethnic lines, adults with mental health needs are less likely to access care if they are Hispanic, Black, or Asian compared to White adults — illustrating persistent disparities in service access and utilization.
Persistent gaps in health care access and affordability have enduring effects on wellbeing, functional health, and longevity — disproportionately impacting lower-income individuals.
These trends are not abstract — they shape real lives and are correlated with long-term physical and mental health outcomes.
Socioeconomic Impact: Beyond the Individual
When recovery becomes accessible, the effects compound:
Improved health behaviors can contribute to reduced long-term healthcare strain.
Local employment and programming can center community needs around health design and facilitation.
Stronger community infrastructure emerges where spaces are designed for all, not just those who can afford boutique care.
A concept like The In-Between opens pathways to address wealth and class disparities — not through charity, but through designing care that is both preventive and accessible.
Investments that close gaps in movement, recovery, and regeneration have the potential to enhance overall wellbeing, reduce chronic health burdens, and shift the narrative around who health spaces are for.
Experience Design: From Arrival to Recovery
The In-Between is designed around transition:
Intentional arrival rituals that allow people to shed the outside world.
Private preparation spaces for those coming from work, caregiving, or daily stress.
Training environments that support movement, strength, and mobility.
Recovery rituals (breathwork, sound, rest, nervous-system regulation) that facilitate regrouping and restoration.
Architectural language that communicates calm, dignity, and inclusion — not exclusivity.
The space avoids performance mirrors and pressure-filled cues.
It emphasizes presence, pacing, and self-directed engagement.
If This Scaled: From Concept to Infrastructure
If implemented beyond a single location, The In-Between could function as a modular recovery infrastructure adaptable across cities and communities.
Rather than relying on a centralized destination model, the concept supports:
neighborhood-scale locations
partnerships with schools, community organizations, and public institutions
variable access models that reflect local economic conditions
programming calibrated to specific population needs, including youth, working adults, caregivers, and aging communities
At scale, this approach positions recovery not as a boutique service, but as a shared, preventative resource. This has implications for long-term public health outcomes, community engagement, and brand trust built through sustained presence rather than episodic campaigns.
The model is designed to complement—not replace—existing gyms, clinics, and healthcare systems by addressing gaps between them.
Final Thought
The In-Between is not about replacing gyms, clinics, or hospitals.
It’s about filling the gaps they can’t.
By designing for recovery across class, race, and social status, brands like Nike have the opportunity to move beyond performance narratives and into long-term human impact.
This is what it looks like when culture, care, and scale align.
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