Working with what's there

If we consider design to be a collaborative activity of world-building (and not just problem-solving), how to think about the materials, entities, and groups that are there to work with?

What does it mean to work with material that is already there? What does this bring to a design practice?

I'm trying to articulate this in writing on this page. Here is a place to start gathering thoughts around these topics:

• starting from the middle
• working within a material practice (I want to relate this to these thoughts about experimental publishing)
• subsistence and autonomy as inter-dependence