Why Knot?

Why Knot?

Knots pull things together — they’re sites of literal and figurative connection. Knotty objects entangle practices, processes, and policies.

We are a team of Environmental Graphic Designers, Landscape Architects, and Landscape Ecologists seeking opportunities to promote social equity and environmental stewardship. We act as members of a diverse, interdependent ecosystem of ideas.

Knot Studio is a certified Disadvantaged Women-Owned Business Enterprise with certification numbers OR #207 and WA #D2F0027341.

 

We resist the traditional divide between nature and culture, recognizing that environmental struggles have always been entangled in human concerns of justice, economics, and politics.

Environmental Graphic Design

We create memorable, pursuasive, and engaging experiences for people at the intersection of story, site, and architecture.

Landscape Architecture

Our engagement with the natural and built world informs how we relate to others, inspiring movement, rest, and encounter activities.

Landcape Ecology

A throughline in our work is the willingness to include people in our systems models, and the structural inequalities that drive landscape pattern.


Environmental Justice

We support our partners in balancing the distribution of environmental amenities to communities with the most need while ensuring that public processes are facilitated using accessible and equitable methods.


Synthesizing Creative Tensions

The push-and-pull between ideas animates Knot Studio's work with complementary energy. It is through exploring the tension in paradoxes such as Human/System, Experimental/Practical, and Create/Sustain that innovation happens. We believe that paradoxes can and should coexist, leading to creative alternatives that engage both. Our work demonstrates that it is through the push-and-pull of paradoxical logic and integrative thinking that synthesis is possible.

Design Principle
Entanglement
Co-mingle ideas across disciplines. Act as members of a diverse, interdependent ecosystem of ideas and organisms.
Ecologies
Explore and contribute to the complex relationships of natural, designed, and/or informational spaces—sites of entanglement.
Exploration
Attempt the unexpected, while still valuing context and use. Make the world more interesting with visionary new ideas and approaches.
Collaboration
Use values and process as guideposts; respect specialized expertise while working together closely and without information silos.
Stewardship
Design with compassion and consideration. Honor legacy, resist fads. Be a part of long-term solutions.
Expertise Entanglement Anti-disciplinary