Craft has unexpectedly returned to the architect. Migrating from the job site into the exploratory space of the design studio, craft takes on new unprecedented dimensions. No longer strictly limited by material realities, or the routines of normative practice, the architect is free to engage with a project across scales and mediums, craft is for Reiser+Umemoto less a set of concrete techniques than an exploratory ethos. This radical mode of thinking and working is an ongoing dance between centuries-old and cutting-edge technologies. A crafty engagement with technology is essential; eluding the twin traps of conservative handicraft and process-based techno-purism the practice seeks to chart a radically aesthetic passage between to two as the most resonant way to advance culture and society. Like the effectiveness of the itinerant smith and Lockheed’s Skunk Works, which existed within larger machines: economic, political or otherwise, Reiser+Umemoto continue to leverage the vitality of independent thought beyond the constraints of normative practice, in service to the world.