Design rarely begins with the object alone. It begins where things, people, and systems meet and set one another in motion. What we see is often only the surface: an interface, a room, a service. What holds is in between. In the pause, in the relation, in what is not yet fixed.
The Japanese idea of ma means interval, gap, in-between space. Long before design theory took it up again, architects described ma as lived space: not an empty field, but what arises between forms and events (Nitschke, 1966). Later, ma is read as ambiguity: as in-betweenness that keeps meaning open (Nguyen, 2020). Jiang and Hayama call this co-becoming: a relational ethic of designing (Jiang & Hayama, 2026). The in-between is then not a leftover after form. It is where form comes into being. Absolute clarity without interval turns rigid. Good design uses ambiguity on purpose: open enough to interpret, clear enough to orient.
At the same time, the character of things themselves is changing. Many of the things we live with are no longer stable objects. They are networked, changeable, still becoming in use. Their surface looks simple; underneath, relations, data, and intentions keep moving. Things mediate what we can do. Sometimes they trigger other things. And some things serve without belonging to us. Then it is not enough to refine a single form. What is designed are relations.
Human-centered design still matters. It is no longer enough as the only frame, once technology learns in use and helps build worlds. Wakkary speaks of designing-with: designing in a world that humans share with more-than-human others (Wakkary, 2021). The human remains central, but not alone. Form arises in interplay.
At SOL LAB we keep this in-between deliberately open. Design, for us, is a philosophy of making: thought tested in doing, and doing that asks for thought. What we know in that work does not sit in a method. It sits in sensibilities: in the body, in the relation to the matter, transferable like a skin, not like a lens (Gamboa & Andersen, 2026). Form is neither décor nor proof. Form means taking responsibility for relations.
Not to fix everything in place, but to build in-between spaces that can hold: between human and technology, part and whole, clarity and openness.
What lies underneath is a simple stance: precisely open rather than falsely closed. Between things, what remains comes into being.
