What is design? Where does the design activity start and end? Who are the actors involved in design process and how do they collaborate? What is the role of objects in collaboration practices? The concept of “network within” (Parolin, Mattozzi, 2014: Mattozzi and Parolin 2017) is introduced to illustrate the process of (continuous) (re)articulation of the network of relationships that makes an object part of a broader system formed by human and non-human actors that enter into the relationship with it. This way of conceptualizing design practices approach – that see design as a chain of translation within specific networks - allows us to give account of the entanglements of materials, bodies and knowing among cross organizational boundaries. Then we apply on the analytical framework proposed by Nicolini and alt. (2012) on the role of objects in cross-disciplinary collaboration, to account of the role of materiality in the process of design of two objects from different contexts: a chair and a depolluting system to treat urban runoffs. Our aim is duplex, on one hand, we argue that a conceptualization of design as a chain of translations can show how the design is spread among organizational and disciplinary boundaries. On the other hand, we discuss the role of materiality in cross-disciplinary and inter-firms collaboration. We conclude that while that analytical framework sheds light on different aspects of objects in cross-organizational collaboration, it risks of putting their transitional status in the foreground