Designing with the immaterial

As a knowledge based practice UNStudio's approach is to link the practical experience within the demands of the global building market with a soft conceptual design and research approach, through which innovation constantly feeds back into and effectively interlaces practice with theory. UNStudio's approach to media content has developed into a tool that serves the purpose of enhancing specific qualities and architectural design parameters in order to add a communicative layer. The immaterial technology within the design is however not an isolated design task, but one of many design components, and therefore an integral element of the architectural system. The application of technology is understood to be similar to the computational methods that UNStudio employs as tools for designing, rather than generating design. Providing examples of this approach on different scales serves as a methodology for the investigation and underlines the process as a thread for the development of the design work, rather than merely presenting the results thereof.