You own a world. We connect it to everyone else.
Current Studies
The work is already happening. These are the current P1Lab research and publishing programs.
Florida Field Record
A continuing regional field-record program documenting Florida's people, places, trades, landscapes, working environments and material culture.
Commissioned Field Records
Permanent records of specialized businesses and the work they actually do: the people, tools, processes, environments and knowledge that make the operation what it is.
Arturia Instrumentarium
A 24-volume study of electronic instruments, their invention, architecture, history, interfaces and musical use.
u-he Sound Design Atlas
Eight volumes examining synthesis, sound design, instruments, techniques and the musical practices built around them.
NS Design Electric Cello Study
A five-volume study of the electric cello: construction, materials, electronics, mechanics, performance and the instrument's development.
Electronic Organs
A two-volume study of the electronic organ as instrument, technology, electrical system, architecture and musical environment.
Korea: Material Culture Series
An independent documentary field study beginning in Seoul, recording selected material systems through museums, food, craft, architecture, objects, and everyday physical life.
The Approach
Different subjects. The same basic problem.
You know your world.
A company knows its instruments. A craftsperson knows the work. A hospital knows its system. A place knows itself.
The difficulty is usually somewhere else: giving someone from outside enough understanding to see why that world matters and how its parts connect.
We learn it with you.
We enter the subject, ask questions, follow the work, examine the evidence and pay attention to the connections.
Then we build something that lets another person come into the subject without having to begin where we did.
The Work
The form follows the subject.
Field Records
Detailed records of active operations, specialized trades, places and working knowledge.
Books
Monographs and multi-volume studies built around a subject rather than a campaign.
Institutional Studies
Research and publications built with organizations whose knowledge needs a durable public form.
Research Programs
Sustained investigations developed over multiple volumes, subjects or stages.
Commissioned Field Records
For businesses whose work is worth understanding.
The operation is the subject.
P1Lab works with owner-led businesses in specialized fields: marine trades, fabrication, woodworking, restoration, horticulture, construction and other operations where knowledge is carried in the work itself.
A Commissioned Field Record follows the operation as it actually happens and creates a durable record of the people, processes, tools, environment and decisions involved.
The result is not promotional media. It is a substantial record of the business and the knowledge behind it.
About Commissioned Field RecordsThe Record
Good work deserves something more durable than a momentary presentation.
Make something that lasts.
P1Lab's work is designed to remain useful after the original project, launch, campaign or conversation has passed.
Books, studies and field records become reference objects: something that can be read, consulted, circulated and returned to.
Give people a way in.
The record is not simply evidence that something exists. It gives someone unfamiliar with the subject enough structure to begin understanding it.
That is the connection.
A Subject Is a Starting Point
Everything can lead somewhere else.
A synthesizer can lead to electrical engineering, industrial design, music, manufacturing and the history of invention. A boatyard can lead to materials, navigation, engineering, craftsmanship and the people who keep those skills alive.
A city, an instrument, a trade, a medical system, a piece of software or a particular way of making something can all be starting points.
P1Lab follows the subject far enough to discover where it leads.