Field Conditions is a design research journal by DesignLabs. We publish written interviews and the occasional essay. The name refers to both the field of design research and the design researcher’s practice of leaving the office to do work in the field.
“Field conditions” is also a concept developed by architect Stan Allen in his 1997 essay “From Object to Field.” From the essay:
“Field conditions here implies the acceptance of the real in all its messiness and unpredictability. It implicates architects in a material improvisation conducted on site in real time. Field conditions treat constraints as opportunity. Working with and not against the site, something new is produced by registering the complexity of the given.”
DesignLabs is a Brooklyn-based research and strategy studio with a global network of design partners.
