About

Yellowtrees

The studio engages in everything at once:
architecture, branding, design, development, investment, UX design, and even fabrication, anything and everything necessary to fulfill the vision.

Gesamtkunstwerk

[soup to nuts]

Yellowtrees is centered on the Gesamtkunstwerk, or ‘total work of art’, model, which places a premium on the interrelation of all the disciplines to create a more meaningful and harmonious whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

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invests, designs, develops, builds

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creates identities, strategies and new branding experiences

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collaborates with institutions, brands and individuals

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has its own shop to fabricate products, mock-ups and environments

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has a gallery to showcase works from its collaborators

project

Construction site 180e88th

view project
project

assembling dry-fit CNC pieces in shop

For the founders, the appeal of this ‘total work of art’ is clear: as an articulation of their vision in every possible sense, top to bottom, and a chance to explore connections across boundaries.

project

Blue man in landscape

view YTrails

For clients and partners, it also makes sense from a business standpoint. It is just easier to trust a single vision and a single point of contact with a multiplicity of talents, than a web of varying purposes.

Collaborators

Founders

Designer, builder, developer, and entrepreneur Peter Guthrie and creative director, designer, and brand strategist Susanne Schaal have pushed the boundaries of their respective fields for decades. Now, they’ve joined forces to found Yellowtrees, a studio dedicated to articulating their singular vision in polyphonic realms.

The founders’ vast experience—Guthrie as a Founder, Chief Creative Officer, and Head of Design & Construction of DDG, which revolutionized what real estate development can achieve when design is considered a central driver for creating value; Schaal as founder of Jakob Jakob, which pioneered how branding can multiply the value proposition when strategic collaboration is integrally woven into the design story—together fuel the engine of this creative practice.

The many years of successful collaboration between their respective firms cemented their strong belief in the central power of art and design to drive ultimate value. Yellowtrees is an opportunity to expand on this belief and vision.

project

Yellowtrees images by Kyoko Hamada

We invited photographer Kyoko Hamada to interpret the life and identity of the Yellowtrees studio.
“Her subject matter has often been the ordinary people and objects stylized and staged into subtle quiet moments dealing with self-referentiality and various metaphors.”