Meet Fieldwork Facility, a design studio for "uncharted territories"

The ethos of North Star orienting Hackney-based design studio Fieldwork Facility is a simple phrase: "Studio is an attitude, not a place". The phrase has allowed the team to critically explore the “intersection of communication, innovation and place”, while “navigating societal and environmental shifts”, explains founder and creative director Robin Howie. Finding its start in 2010, the bipoc-owned studio has since used “travel, journeys and pop-up studios as design tools” to great effect, having amassed an impressive collection of design awards and getting its work featured in Bloomberg CityLab, Wired and FastCo among others.

Fieldwork Facility’s practice, Robin says, is firmly rooted in the philosophy that “design is a role of citizenship”, spurred on by short-lived “creative crushes” and empowered by insights gleaned from a variety of unexpected contexts – including chefs. The team has tapped into their inexhaustible creativity for projects with the National Park City Foundation, New London Architecture and Brent Cross Town. But their knack for creative composition and type is on full display in the book design commissioned for moving image artist Sondra Perry’s immersive and dream-like audio-visual installation Lineage for a Phantom Zone, with content developed by Black-owned creative agency A Vibe Called Tech.