Few fences, few rules; the ranch leaves room for transformation.
principle — attributed to Deborah Szekely
Szekely's design discipline at Rancho la Puerta is to put up few fences and few rules. Guests design their own experience there, with one exception covered below. The minimal-structure approach inverts the default hospitality instinct to over-program. Programmed retreats produce predictable outcomes. Less-programmed retreats produce the unexpected ones that guests come back for. The discipline is not laziness; it is a confidence that the conditions (mountain, exercise, exposure to other interesting people) will do the work the program would otherwise have tried to do. The retreat is the environment, not the schedule.
For retreat designers, leadership program designers, and any host running multi-day immersive experiences. The principle is most useful as a corrective against over-programming.
minimal-rules, freedom, transformation, ranch-design