In short, following Marshall McLuhan's famous provocation, the editors focus less on the message and more on the medium of research. This involves retreating from research contents-the topics, themes, questions, hypotheses, insights, ideas, concepts, and thoughts-for the moment to consider the materials, methods, tools, techniques, and approaches that support them. This change in perspective reveals a rich array of research approaches that include: the visual documentationof complex stakeholder interests, political and economic circumstances in built form and design vision; two-and three-dimensional mapping of vegetation, temperature and humidity, in conjunction with point cloudterrestrial and airborne laser-scanning technology; gathering data from sensors and geospatial data; emergence of "solution spaces"and multi-dimensional complexity science; subject oriented approaches to behavioural and cognitive decision making in city navigation; and approaches to emergent phenomena such as extended urbanisation that are not always visible to existing analytical or documentary lenses.