Across a high-profile portfolio, Berlin-based Sub has established a practice that is elusive to define—not least because the office typically prefers to remain behind the scenes. At Summit 2024,-founder Niklas Bildstein Zaar cast light on the studio’s projects and collaborations. Together with Andrea Faraguna, the Sub duo is behind the Balenciaga Architecture Program, creating everything from the “raw architecture” of the fashion house’s flagship stores, to the absorptive atmospheres of its runway shows. Situating Sub somewhere between a research institute and a design studio, the pair describe its output as a continual interpretation of the contemporary world, emerging from the synthesis of images, research, technology and architecture. Addressing multiple scales at once, and combining physical materials and digital media, the practice aims less to design architecture and more to develop a world-building language. Testing its bounds, Sub has completed projects for Mercedes Benz, Tate Modern, Palais de Tokyo, Anne Imhof, Ferragamo, Mugler and Kering. Recently, the office has applied its essentially experimental approach to design concerts for Travis Scott, in a continuation of their collaboration on the apocalyptic Pompeii amphitheatre performance featured in his Circus Maximus anthology.