Cluster: The Next Lifestyle?

Mark, Jon and I were discussing Abercrombie & Fitch the other day and the conversation got around to the fact that A&F has excelled at selling “lifestyle” rather than product or brand. We speculated that the evolution of those ideas has been from product to brand to experience to lifestyle. Then we wondered, “What’s next?”

May I suggest cluster? In this book, author Michael Weiss explains that rather than any 1 company-defined lifestyle, we assemble our lives out of clusters–multiple overlapping demographic criteria that assemble themselves into segments such as “Shotguns & Pickups”, “Young Affluentials” or “God’s Country”. For an example, go here and enter your zip code to find the dominant clusters that define your neighborhood. My feeling that the concept is even richer (and less marketing-driven) than Weiss lets on.

Rem and Bruce Mau have gotten a lot of mileage out the brand\experience\lifestyle gradient. How can the idea of cluster either influence architecture or become architectural?