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Real estate · Hospitality · Placemaking

Geneva — Montréal

Creative minds.Transforming development.

Families walking through a landscaped pedestrian street with modern timber pergolas and a café
First the life. Then the place.

We align the story, plan and economics so owners, investors and operators can move forward around a shared vision for development.

We are who you bring in before the brief is locked, while the project is still deciding what it wants to be.Meet INITIAL

We are INITIAL.

  • A strategy firm for real estate innovators.
  • A creative studio for dedicated developers.
  • A people-first practice built for impact.

Expertstrategists

We start with logic. Our plans are financially sound, context-aware, and built to evolve. We lead with insight over instinct, and chart real-world paths from vision to execution.

Masterstorytellers

Before any walls go up, we tell the story. We co-create the emotional and strategic place narrative, then build around it. Story first, experience second, human above all.

Humblehumans

We show up without ego and listen deeply. We let the land, the people, and the project speak. We create at human scale, for health, joy, and long-term wellbeing.

We turn land and development ambitions into a coherent proposition: a place with purpose and a credible path forward. We align planning, public realm, hospitality, services and daily life around the same story—then connect the vision to feasibility, phasing, absorption, capital requirements and operator alignment.

Ready to unlock your property’s highest potential? Reach out.
Friends, neighbours, and passersby animating a shaded café street
Life is the brief.

The measure of a place is not how it photographs empty. It is what people choose to do there, together.

01Strategy & planning

Wheelhouse

Explore the Wheelhouse

Define the path before you start.

Development Strategy

Align the ambition with a credible path forward.

Master Planning

Turn the story into a place that works.

Retail Planning & Phasing

Shape the mix. Build the footfall. Sequence the growth.

Financial Modelling

Test the assumptions. Understand what drives value.

Entitlements & Partnerships

Align the partners and navigate the path to approval.

02Ideas & people

Creative Capital

Explore Creative Capital

Imagine the life before planning the walls.

A contemporary mixed-use plaza animated by people, cafés, and everyday public life
Life first. Then form.

Decision Workshop

Immersive sessions designed to explore the forces shaping your project and begin to articulate the story that will carry it forward.

Narrative Strategy

Few tools are as effective at capturing the attention of investors and future users alike as a carefully assembled selection of words and pictures worth their weight in real estate.

Project Playbook

A shared development reference that brings the vision, target users, positioning, program, experience principles, phasing and key decisions into one place. It gives owners, investors, operators and design teams a common brief to work from.

Envisioning

Our approach to any type of development is to write the story first, then build the walls around it.

Our envisioning sessions bring strategy, future and story into the same room—aligning the team before the first line is drawn.

Meet the core guides:

03Well-being & place

Vital Environments

Explore Vital Environments

“Our mission is the same for every project, whether a resort, an urban mixed-use district, or a regenerative community: to build places that love you back.”

Building Wellbeing

Imagine a built environment that does more than house us.

Homes, communities, and public spaces crafted with intention and empathy, not just to serve a function but to actively support our longevity through health, joy, and human connection.

Human Scale

How a place makes you feel, move, and live.

To us, placemaking means working at the human scale. Considering not just how a place looks, but how it makes you feel, move, and live. We build wellbeing into the fabric of every project, from the flow of the master plan to the daily rituals each space inspires. We do it on principle, and because it pays back in spades.

A contemporary hospitality courtyard at dusk with people dining, walking, and meeting friends
A destination should have a pulse.

The best places create reasons to arrive, reasons to linger, and reasons to come back.

04Selected projects

Work

Explore our Work

Places shaped across continents, scales, and generations.

Mountain

  • Battle Mountain, Colorado
  • Mont-Tremblant Versant Soleil
  • Mont-Tremblant ResortFairmont · Westin · Marriott
  • Flaine, France
  • Saas-Fee, Switzerland
  • Burke Mountain, Vermont
  • Snowshoe, West Virginia
  • Mountain Creek, New Jersey
  • Jungfrau Mountain Project, Switzerland
  • Jack’s Point, Queenstown, New ZealandFour Seasons
  • Leukerbad Thermal Resort, SwitzerlandKempinski

Warm & coastal

  • Hayman Island, AustraliaOne&Only · IHG
  • Sandestin Beach Resort, Florida
  • Old Bahama Bay, Bahamas
  • Saint-Émilion Golf ResortStarwood · Méridien
  • New San José, Los CabosIHG
  • Six Senses Kasbahs, MoroccoSix Senses
  • Six Senses South of FranceSix Senses
  • Six Senses Oaks, PragueSix Senses
  • Six Senses Megève, FranceSix Senses
  • Hôtel Cap d’Ail, France
  • Eco Hotel & Branded Residences, France

Villages, districts & cities

  • Les Arcs 1950, France
  • Les Arcs 1800, France
  • Edelweiss Mountain Village, SwitzerlandGHM
  • Verbier Bruson, SwitzerlandSix Senses
  • The Village at Puerto Los CabosME
  • Blue Mountain Village, CanadaWestin
  • Dragonfly Joyful Living, Ottawa, Canada
  • Village Kirkland, Montréal
  • Magic City, Miami
  • Geneva Arena District
  • Barthiya City, Bangalore

Brands we’ve built with, or alongside

Six SensesFour SeasonsKempinskiLUX*ViceroyFairmontWestinMéridienMarriottOne&OnlyIHGGHMNikki Beach

Explore the full portfolio
People gathering, dining and talking in a lively evening piazza

05Our point of view

Soapbox

Explore Soapbox

What’s worth fighting for?

Our fight lies in building for the next era of living, travelling, working, and aging. Proactively curating the built environment we want to see. Choosing our battles carefully, while keeping an eye on the future.

Generational Shifts

What will Gen Alpha demand from the world we’re building today? We’re decoding how Gen Z, and especially Gen Alpha, will reshape real estate and hospitality. Their behaviours, values, and digital fluency will rewrite what “home,” “luxury,” and “community” even mean. We can help you position your project from the outset, or reposition an existing one.

Read perspective

The Art of Listening in Design

We consider listening a creative act, and an essential step in design. From insight communities to on-the-ground workshops, we listen to landscapes, stories, behaviours, and silences. Listening never imposes. It reveals.

Read perspective

Time as a Design Tool

We don’t design for phases. We design for futures. We believe in master plans that unfold over decades, not development cycles. Our work embraces slow growth, flexible phasing, and the rhythms of real life.

Read perspective
A conversationGeneva and Montreal.

What is your project trying to become—and who decided that?

Discuss your project