Field States exists to reveal the latent potential in buildings, districts, and cities – and to build the strategies that make it real. We believe every place has potential, and that realizing it under conditions of accelerating change is among the most consequential challenges facing the built environment today.
The latent potential is not limited to commercial viability. Quite the opposite. Our understanding of potential is the creation of shared value – long-term, whole-community and ecological thriving. Aesthetics matter. We aren’t afraid to make normative claims about the design of the public realm and institutions behind it. Ideas like justice, risk, equity, and wealth have very tangible material implications, and very specific systemic ones. We are committed to defining those and designing for them. Field States’ Operating Agreement states that the purpose of the Company "shall include creating a material positive impact on society and the environment, taken as a whole, from the business and operations of the Company."
We call our work Adaptive Urbanism – an original framework, developed through MIT research and refined in practice, which treats cities as learning systems capable of adapting to succeed in an uncertain future. The truly adaptive city is one in which stakeholders – residents, public officials, designers, financiers – continuously design, test, deliberate, and improve their spaces and the systems behind them. This process enables us to strive toward the good city.
We treat the knowledge of what Adaptive Urbanism is, and how to put it into practice, as a public good: through Field Discovery, we publish our research openly so the field can adapt faster than any one firm can deliver.
Legal structure. Field States is a registered Oregon Benefit Company under ORS 60.750. This is a binding legal commitment: in directing the Company, management must consider not only the interests of its member, but the effects of decisions on customers as beneficiaries of the Company’s public purpose; on the communities in which the Company, its subsidiaries, and its suppliers operate; on the local and global environment; on the short- and long-term interests of the Company; and on the Company’s ability to create a material positive impact on society and the environment as a whole. These stakeholder considerations are written into our Operating Agreement and govern how decisions are made.
Aligned accountability. Our compensation model operationalizes this purpose. A portion of every analysis fee is credited toward the delivery work that follows, where fees are tied to delivery milestones – so the firm succeeds when its clients, and the places they steward, succeed. We are structurally committed to the outcomes of every project we take on, not merely to billing the hours. At any given time, we take on pro-bono or low-bono work in our community, for causes that matter.
Diversity and equity in practice. We have a conviction that the best design comes from a team with diverse perspectives and histories. We are an equal opportunity employer, and resist bias in every way we can. Field States is a COBID-certified Small Business Enterprise in Oregon. We maintain a 1.25:1 ratio between our highest- and lowest-paid workers, and all workers are compensated well above a living wage.
Purpose oversight sits at the highest level of the Company. Matthew Claudel, as Founder and 100% owner, holds ultimate accountability for the Company’s social and environmental performance. He is supported by:
As an Oregon Benefit Company, Field States prepares an annual benefit report assessing its performance against its public-benefit purpose. This report is our standing mechanism for measuring, recording, and communicating social and environmental performance year over year; pursuing B Corp Certification is part of our 2026 benefit-reporting commitment. Material findings inform the Company’s strategic planning and are reviewed with the Advisory Group.
This statement is reviewed annually in conjunction with the Oregon annual benefit report and updated as the Company’s purpose, structure, or governance evolves.