Unknown Studio is thrilled to be working on the new home for the Center for the Futures of Native Peoples (CFNP) at @dickinsoncollege , in collaboration with @jonesandjonesseattle (Design Architect), @ozcollab (Architect of Record), @jbclandscapearchitects (Soils & Irrigation Design), and @csdavidsoninc (Civil and Site Structural Engineering).
Located near the former Carlisle Indian Industrial School (CIIS), the project carries profound significance for Indigenous communities across North America that are connected to its history. The new home for CFNP will also house the Samuel G. Rose ’58 Art Gallery, expanding the College’s exhibition spaces with a focus on Indigenous artworks alongside the existing rotating exhibits of the Trout Gallery.
Unknown Studio is landscape architect of record and is working in close collaboration with the project team and CFNP stakeholders, shaping outdoor spaces that support education, gathering, and reflection on the project’s cultural context.
We are hiring! Unknown Studio is seeking an enthusiastic and curious entry-level landscape designer to join our Baltimore-based studio. Responsibilities include supporting the team from concept design through construction documentation, research, visualization, presentations, and model-making on projects that range from visionary master plans to garden scale installations.
We are a landscape architecture and urban design practice with a deep belief in the power of the designed landscape to bring joy, wonder, beauty and improved quality of life to all. Through the craft of design and engaged collaboration, we create new places and microclimates, tell stories, unearth memories, and amplify the culture in which we live.
Use the link in our bio to learn more and apply.
In an increasingly digital world, full-scale mock-ups and analog models are a critical part of the Unknown Studio process, reconnecting hand and eye, scale, proportion, phenomena, and materiality in actual space. In addition to our digital processes, our team believes in the critical importance of developing projects in three dimensions.
On Friday, March 13, Unknown Studio’s Claire Agre will join an esteemed panel of Museum and design experts at the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums’ 2026 Building Museums Conference.
Together with Brady Roberts, Executive Director / CEO of the @verobeachmuseumofart , Chelsea Grassinger of @allied_works , and Peter Hoskow, President and COO of @ccsfundraising , Claire will share “From Institution to Ecosystem: The Vero Beach Museum of Art’s 21st Century Transformation.”
See you there!
Gardens are–and always have been–a vital part of American life. As the United States turns 250 years old this year, we asked four designers from across the country to consider the country’s tradition of gardening past, present, and future.
In response, they created 800-square-foot gardens covering a wide range of themes, including landscape as inheritance, the beauty in decay, the loss of the American Chestnut tree, and the reclamation of space through overgrown native plants.
The artists’ creations remind us that there exist many diverse Americas, past and present, and that our relationship to plants and the world around us is one of constant interconnection.
#ROOTED2026 #ThePhiladelphiaFlowerShow
The American Garden (noun) is both an artform and a conversation between ecosystem, colonialism, migration, and a cross-pollination of ideas. American Gardening (verb) reflects a reciprocal relationship with the natural world: we need nature, but more importantly, nature needs us.
Unknown Studio was thrilled to explore these themes through our installation, “The Ghost Forest,” at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society’s 2026 Philadelphia Flower Show. This year’s theme, “Rooted: Origins of American Gardening,” coincides with the nation’s 250th birthday.
A void represents where the American Chestnut once grew. A keystone within the eastern woodland, the Chestnut was at once interconnected with and sustaining of human life. Our exhibition invites the public to contemplate loss, while illuminating the beauty of a future woodland through partnership with the gardener.
Unknown Studio actively engaged in work on-the-ground. Our collective gathering of acorns, chestnuts, locust pods, hickory nuts, and magnolia cones over the course of months yielded time to contemplate the questions guiding this installation:
How do we fill the vast ecological niche of the American Chestnut while staying true to the native plant community of the eastern seaboard?
How do we preserve the cultural meaning of the Chestnut without losing hope of its return?
Is this a productive form of nostalgia?
Does a simple act of small-scale gardening make up for ecological and cultural loss?
Is something better than nothing?
Restoring the woodland and tending the forest floor will take stewardship in the smallest and broadest sense. The chestnut seedlings within our Garden are entirely American natives from two mother trees in Cumberland County, PA. That they live at all is the result of the persistence of people and the protection of their roots.
Immense gratitude to @phsgardening for the opportunity, to @theamericanchestnutfoundation for seedlings, to @apiary_studio for advice, to @williamsontrade for extra hands, to @cylburn_arboretum_friends for prunings, to @stationnorthtoollibrary for the tools, and to our moms, families, and neighbors for the nuts.
Every gardener is an active participant in the conversation between humans and the natural world.
Once dominant in the Mid-Atlantic landscape, the American Chestnut was both interconnected with—and sustained—human life.
Through their representation of a native woodland understory, Unknown Studio examines this historically reciprocal relationship, while also commenting on ecological loss and inspiring hope for what's to come.
ROOTED: Origins of American Gardening—Closing March 8
🎟️ via our link in bio.
#ROOTED2026 #ThePhiladelphiaFlowerShow
Unknown Studio is pleased to welcome new additions to the team!
Nangorlee Demenwu joins Unknown Studio as our new Director of Communications. She brings a wealth of experience including international relations and humanities nonprofits, along with her past role on the business development team at KieranTimberlake. Nangorlee is inspired by design’s potential to enrich the world through stitching individual stories into broader narratives. Extracurricularly, Nangorlee’s joy revolves around her curious mind—traveling often, wandering museums, cooking new recipes, discovering new music, and exploring local coffee shops.
Agnes To is a landscape designer who is interested in the intersection of art, ecology, and community within the urban fabric. A native of the vibrant urban density of Hong Kong, she is inspired to craft spaces that merge human experience with landscape infrastructure. Outside the studio, Agnes loves cooking, enjoying the outdoors, and exploring neighborhoods and cities around the world.
Please join us in welcoming Nangorlee and Agnes to Charm City!
Happy Friday! This is your reminder to RSVP for a very special Fountain Safari lecture by @jimflo7 hosted by @unknownstudio_la Feb.17th in Baltimore, MD!
@fluidity_design_consultants is thrilled to connect with the Baltimore Design Community and share a 1 hr chapterized portrait of the evolution of water design, from earliest examples to speculations about the future.
✨RSVP at the link in our bio✨
🍷Cocktails start at 5:30pm - Lecture begins at 6pm⛲️
#waterdesign #fountainsafari #fluiditydesignconsultants #unknownstudiosla #baltimoredesigncommunity
Fluidity Design Consultants is thrilled to be hosted by @unknownstudio_la for a special Fountain Safari book lecture and cocktail hour on Feb 17th in Baltimore, MD. Join @jimflo7 and @valorieborn for a portrait of the evolution of water design, from earliest examples to speculations about the future. This is not an event to miss! Flow to the link in our bio to register. Cocktails begin at 5:30pm, Lecture starts at 6pm. Looking forward to seeing you there! #fountainsafari #fluiditydesignconsultants #unknownstudio #historyofwater #waterdesign
Unknown Studio is thrilled to be a special exhibitor at this year’s Philadelphia Flower Show.
The 2026 Flower Show theme—Rooted: Origins of American Gardening—shows that gardens aren’t just made; they’re passed forward through generations, carried across land, oceans, and lifetimes.
In our installation, Unknown Studio explores the American Garden as an artform (noun) that embodies a long cultural conversation between ecosystem, colonialism, migration, and the cross-pollination of ideas. We will also look to how American Gardening (verb) reflects a reciprocal relationship with the natural world: we need nature, but more importantly, nature needs us.
Here’s a sneak peek at some of the adventures we’ve been on, and the various elements exploring ecological loss and the woodland role of the beloved American Chestnut, Castanea dentata.
Unknown Studio is excited to share a special preview of our Philadelphia Flower Show (February 28-March 8) exhibition design with PHS Members at 12PM EST TODAY – you can register here: http://bit.ly/4qNLc81
Tickets are on sale now – we hope to see you there: /events
Our studio expresses gratitude to The American Chestnut Foundation for advice, seedlings, and artifacts. Great thanks is also given to the mothers, friends and neighbors in the City of Baltimore for assistance in collecting from the forest floor.
#ROOTED2026 #PhiladelphiaFlowerShow @phsgardening@theamericanchestnutfoundation
