Our work is grounded in anthropology, qualitative methods, and ethnographic content.
Ethnography places agents, actions, and locations in context. It addresses who does what, why, when, and how—revealing how people experience, use, and make meaning of their surroundings.
Knowing the practices of stakeholders and why they matter, enables us to test and assess your plans, visions, and existing design.
Through fieldwork, spatial analysis, and user involvement, our services help to convey not just how an environment is designed, but how it is lived, navigated, and made meaningful in everyday life.
What we do
We deliver research-based insights that facilitate new directions, preserve and protect existing qualities, and enable strong design processes.
Identify the Essence
What makes a place authentic? We identify the essence of a place as experienced by people who use it. Through ethnographic research and cultural analysis, we explore what gives places their meaning and value. This helps identify what to preserve, strengthen, or transform; both in the project at hand and in future development.
Calls from the Public
What constitutes “the good” in local settings? Through ethnographic enquiry, we identify valued places, activities, and events. Through analysis, we explore what makes them “good”. In collaboration with your design team, real-life experiences of the “good” are turned into design parameters scalable beyond the concrete examples.
Stress Test
Systemic collapses are always a matter of cause and effect. To test the resilience of spaces, we look at what itches, the small fractures in everyday practices, and how they are experienced by users and/or citizens. We look at where, when and how systems are challenged.
Better versions
We invite users to relive “better versions” of alienating events through co-creative photographic staging. By exploring what a better outcome would look like, we produce concrete visualizations for improved futures, which can serve as guidance for problem-based design.