In June, we completed Interlude, a month long family residency in Hudson, NY, along with artist Brandon Ng and his family.  During this time, we engaged with local artists and enjoyed Art Omi, DIA Beacon, MASS Moca, and explored new project concepts and opportunities related to the material and narrative potential of soil.

In August 2024, Commonstudio participated in a group show at CYNK Studios (Ypsilanti Michigan), along with Sally Clegg, Erin McKenna, Abhishek Narula.  The show’s theme centered around the function and meaning of fountains, and the piece is titled “ Fulfillment (Field Study No. 2)”. The piece consists of 10lbs of replenished chocolate rocks, resupplied as consumed.

Commonstudio’s collaborative work featured in a group exhibition APPROXIMATING THESE ARID LANDS, which opened on March 28, 2022, and ran through May 2, 2022.

Working in a recent visiting artist position at Graceland University, Commonstudio co-founder Kim Karlsrud completed a three month landscape installation, entitled “Large and Round When Popped” for the Constance Gallery in the Helene Center for the Visual Arts (October 2019-Febuary 2020).

Commonstudio’s Kim Karlsrud celebrates the opening of a group exhibition in Ann Arbor, MI.

We are thrilled to announce the recent completion of “Mow Town” an interactive storymap which explores the emergence and management of spontaneous urban vegetation in the city of Detroit.

Update on our recently built “Model Nallah” at Sowl lake! The current configuration compares the performance of terracotta rubble to granite gravel aggregate in the treatment of real urban wastewater from the surrounding city. Recently our team introduced dozens of Canna Lilies (Canna indica) into the system to assess planted vs. non-planted performance characteristics. It will also anticipate the possibility for multi-functional benefits of STRAINS interventions, capable of providing a range of visual interest and ecosystem services when introduced into open drains throughout the city.

Commonstudio Founders Kim and Daniel in collaboration with Firat Erdim, will be facilitating a three day workshop with 80 undergraduate architecture students at Iowa State University’s College of Design. Drawing upon insights from an ongoing experimental intervention currently in development in the periphery of Rome, the workshop is entitled Depaving Des Moines: Catalysts for Landscape Change in the Urban Watershed. Over the course of three days, students will be introduced to various landscape methodologies and have a unique opportunity to get their hands dirty in the field with a live de-paving demonstration project within the Fourmile Creek watershed of Des Moines.

Fast Track grant will enable cross-city research project to be added to UofM’s massive herbaria collection.

Probing the urban wilds of Bangalore with a local team of citizen scientists in search of the hidden behaviors and virtues of spontaneous vegetation.