Architects Sabine Müller and Andreas Quednau of SMAQ approach design through the use of narrative, telling stories about their projects contexts in order to accommodate the diverse and conflicting scales of contemporary urbanity. This monograph presents a selection of SMAQs projects in a way that brings this narrative quality to the fore. Interweaving short stories, project drawings, and photographs shed light on how design solutions gradually evolved out of the process, while three linked essays explain the guiding principles behind the firms work, intriguingly named Giraffe, Telegraph, and Hero of Alexandria.