Knowledge Infrastructure Lab

The intelligence
was already
there.

We build frameworks, tools, and experiments that make community knowledge visible. Theory at the intersection of civic life, documentary practice, and artificial intelligence.

See the Live Work A knowledge lab of Civic Designers →
Civic Sleep◆Mirror Theory◆Civic Knowledge Transformer◆The Table Reconvenes◆Designed Anomalies◆Convergent Intelligence◆Inclusive Knowledge◆The Space You Carry◆Civic Kodex◆ Civic Sleep◆Mirror Theory◆Civic Knowledge Transformer◆The Table Reconvenes◆Designed Anomalies◆Convergent Intelligence◆Inclusive Knowledge◆The Space You Carry◆Civic Kodex◆
01 — LIVE WORK

Experiments in knowledge and presence

Working prototypes. Click through to experience them live.

LIVE EXPERIMENT
The Table Reconvenes
2006 → 2026 · AI-CONTINUED DIALOGUE
Live Experiment
The Table Reconvenes
AI-Continued Temporal Dialogue · Berlin 2006 → 2026
112 thinkers from 48 countries answered 100 questions at the largest round table ever built. Twenty years later, AI agents shaped by their documented wisdom re-engage those questions. Not simulation — continuation. Every response tethered to actual 2006 video. Click any voice, see the real person.
35
AI Agents
8
Questions
20yr
Bridged
Immersive Environment
Collective Memory: Parramore
360° Documentary Experience · Orlando, Florida
Step inside a living archive where community stories, memories, and voices converge in an immersive 360° documentary. Navigate through spaces, encounter voices, discover connections. AI-guided exploration. Community-managed content. Not a documentary about a community — a documentary built with one.
360°
Immersive
AI
Guided
Live
Archive
Collective Memory
PARRAMORE, FLORIDA · 360°
360°
The Crossroads
CLARKSDALE, MISSISSIPPI · 360°
360°
Immersive Environment
The Crossroads: Clarksdale
360° Blues Documentary · Where the Blues Was Born
"I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees." Clarksdale, Mississippi — the Delta where the blues was born. An immersive 360° cinematic experience that places you at the crossroads of American music, memory, and place.
360°
Cinematic
Delta
Mississippi
Coming Soon
Alchemy at MIT
360° Statue Experience · Cambridge, Massachusetts
An immersive 360° video experience captured at MIT, exploring the intersection of art, technology, and institutional space. Part of the spatial documentary series connecting communities across geography through shared experiential infrastructure.
360°
Video
MIT
Cambridge
Alchemy
MIT · CAMBRIDGE · 360°
02 — TOOLS + INFRASTRUCTURE

Knowledge made visible

Tools that process community voice into community knowledge.

◎
Civic Knowledge Transformer
A centrifuge for language. Community stories enter. Layered knowledge separates out. Six-dimensional interpretive modeling reveals how people construct meaning — orientation, relational stance, emotional frame, reasoning mode, value language, and action energy.
6-Dimensional ModelingCentrifuge ArchitectureCross-Community SynthesisPrivacy-First
Surface · Entities
Patterns · Themes
Meaning · Stance
Wisdom
⬡
The Mirror
Community dashboard that returns CKT-processed knowledge. Constellation visualizations, wisdom cards, quote walls, pattern maps. The technology is invisible. The wisdom is visible.
Community DashboardNational PatternsOpt-In Sharing
◈
Civic Kodex
Privacy infrastructure. De-identifies before processing, maps locally, re-identifies on return. The cloud sees markers. The community holds the codex. Trust by architecture.
Data SovereigntyDe-identificationLocal-First
03 — METHODOLOGY

How the lab serves the practice

Developed here. Deployed by Civic Designers with communities.

◐
Spatial Documentary Architecture
The technical infrastructure behind 360° immersive environments. Three.js engines, hotspot systems, AI-powered dialogue. Community-managed content via Google Sheets.
See community projects →
◑
Interpretive Modeling
Six-dimensional analysis that reveals how people construct meaning. Tested on 40+ responses. The theoretical foundation for community dashboards that show what traditional analytics miss.
Explore the CKT →
◒
Critical Moments Reflection
Structured community dialogue that surfaces the meaning-making behind stories. Designed to feed directly into CKT processing. The analog input for digital knowledge infrastructure.
See in practice →
04 — WRITING + THEORY

Frameworks for seeing

Original theoretical work. All written. Ready for the world.

1
Framework
Civic Sleep
The condition of being physically present but perceptually absent from shared space. A functional departure that makes strangers into scenery and need into noise.
"Prosocial capacity is not rare. It is dormant. There is still a creature that would catch you if you fell."
Ready
Aeon · Nautilus · WIRED
2
Theory
Mirror Theory
Convergent intelligence under constraint. Communities, organisms, and AI arriving at similar solutions through entirely different paths.
"The octopus and the neighborhood arrived at the same solution. Because the constraint demanded it."
Ready
Aeon · Nautilus
3
Essay
The Space You Carry
Invisible architecture, ambient permission, and the ethics of space-making. Every person carries an architecture into a room. Most don't know they do it.
"Power doesn't need to speak. It shows up as whose discomfort pauses the room."
Ready
Essay collection
4
Hypothesis
The Mirrored Emergence Hypothesis
Why the universe appears engineered — because complex systems under similar constraints converge on the same structural patterns. Testable predictions included.
"The code was always there. We're just learning to read it."
Ready
WIRED · Aeon
5
Methodology
Designed Anomalies
Small disruptions in public space to map civic sleep and study what produces waking. The tennis ball on the subway platform.
"When perception reorganizes, prosocial capacity comes back online."
In Development
Field research
04.5 — BUILDING IN PUBLIC

Knowledge infrastructure for our present and future

01
We show the work
Every tool, framework, and experiment here is in progress. We share it not because it's finished, but because the building is the point. Community knowledge doesn't wait for perfect systems.
02
AI serves knowing
The intelligence was already there — in communities, in archives, in the patterns people generate under constraint. AI is the instrument, not the intelligence. We build tools that make the invisible visible.
03
Sovereignty by design
Published frameworks. Shared methodology. Knowledge infrastructure only works if communities can own it. We build for sovereignty, not dependency.
05 — ABOUT

What this is

inknow.ai is the knowledge infrastructure lab of Civic Designers, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based at Hope Village in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Civic Designers works with communities — immersive platforms, dialogue, conditions where people see their own intelligence. That's the practice. The trust.

inknow.ai is where ideas get pushed. Frameworks developed. AI tools prototyped. Experiments run. The thinking that powers the practice.

Same people. Same values. Two postures. One builds with communities. The other builds the knowledge systems that make it possible.

Architecture
Civic Designers
Community Practice
inknow.ai
Knowledge Lab
The lab serves the practice. The practice tests the lab.
inknow.ai develops the CKT. Civic Designers deploys it with communities.
inknow.ai publishes frameworks. Civic Designers applies them in the field.
inknow.ai prototypes spatial architecture. Civic Designers builds environments with it.
inknow.ai runs The Table Reconvenes. Civic Designers stewards the archive.