ABSTRACT | This paper questions the ideal digital paradigm of its applicability for non-standard architectural practice in China. Streamlined multi-disciplinary cooperation may constrain when facing a challenging construction context which notorious for its high speed, lack of craftsmanship, low budgets, and poor detailing. Living with this, however, a group of digital practitioners has successfully been able to complete several non-standard architectural projects with a complex form. An argument raises suggesting an essential part of their success lies in their alternative use of typical parametric models, which are adapted to create tolerance space between design, development, and implementation process in response to local challenges. Here, we study two non-standard cases from Chinese architectural practice HHDFUN. By analyzing the project delivery processes, this paper ambitious to extract higher-level knowledge that will contribute to the professional practice and facilitate the extension of an expanded, yet purely digital design solution space into the challenging material world of local construction.