Kaarin Knudson on new patterns, agency, and a better future

Kaarin Knudson is an architect, a writer, and an educator with more than 25 years’ experience in design, sustainability, and community building. Trained as a journalist before becoming an architect, her work has always focused on people and place. In 2017, after a decade in architectural practice, she organized the public-interest project Better Housing Together to address Lane County’s housing crisis. This work supported the creation of Eugene’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, Lane County’s first Affordable Housing Action Plan, and Oregon’s landmark middle housing reforms. In 2024, she was elected as Mayor of Eugene, Oregon, with 73% of the primary vote and 96% in the general election. Kaarin teaches planning and urban design at the University of Oregon, and she speaks at regional and national conferences about sustainable cities, housing, and the work of guiding community change. She is co-author, with Nico Larco, of The Sustainable Urban Design Handbook (2024).We discussed what this moment is calling us all to do. “I think we are building new muscles and new relationships and new patterns of behavior with one another,” she said. “This is challenging us to think about how to work in different ways and how to stay focused on the future that we want to build. The framing of the problem is going to determine the solutions. We have to be the people who are framing the problem in a way that allows the solutions to be more connected, more productive, more about advancing into this future together.”