Metropolis Magazine

Metropolis Magazine Architecture & Design At All Scales With its innovative graphic presentation and provocative voice, Metropolis shows how richly designed our world can be.

In the quest for why design happens in a certain way, Metropolis explores economic, environmental, social, cultural, political, and technological contexts.

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If y...
01/31/2025

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If you haven’t checked them out yet, now’s the perfect time!

How Biophilia inspired MAD Architects to design a new residential building.

When the slick surface of our modern world starts showing cracks, another world—fecund, curvaceous, enchanting—bursts out into the open. At least that’s the message of Denver’s One River North, a newly completed mixed-use project (residential and retail) that has taken its place as an instant icon built to inventive biophilic standards by MAD Architects, which was founded in 2014 and is based in Los Angeles, Rome, and Beijing.

“To me, biophilic means a close relationship between humans and nature,” says Ma Yansong, MAD’s founder and principal partner. “We talk about this connection because we live in a man-made world. In industrial civilizations and modern architecture, the world was built around technology, materials, and functionality. Residential buildings were once described as ‘machines for living,’ with a focus on efficiency and function.”

https://hubs.la/Q034Xspc0

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If y...
01/31/2025

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If you haven’t checked them out yet, now’s the perfect time!

Located on Dempsey Hill near downtown Singapore, the OMA-designed AIR Circular Campus and Cooking Club is a restaurant and dining destination (owned by low-waste hospitality brand Potato Head) that centers conversations on circularity, food, and the environment. The 40,000-square-foot campus consists of a renovated 1970s Modernist building surrounded by green lawns, edible gardens, and outdoor event spaces. Dempsey Hill, a grassy knoll northwest of Singapore’s downtown core, was originally developed as an army barracks in the 19th-century British colonial era. In 1971, in the postindependence period, the young city-state added a humble, two-story rectilinear volume whose flat white roof set it apart from the complex’s pitched red roofs. Catering less to military needs and more to a rapidly growing multicultural society in search of a new national identity, the Modernist building contained the Dempsey Clubhouse, where state civil service workers could socialize and play sports.

https://hubs.la/Q034XcPj0

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If y...
01/26/2025

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If you haven’t checked them out yet, now’s the perfect time!

Equipo de Arquitectura Practices Material Sincerity. Read how the Paraguay-based firm integrates material rigor and contextual design into its cultural and residential projects. Founded by Viviana Pozzoli and Horacio Cherniavsky in 2017—operates from Caja de Tierra (Earth Box), an office of their own design. It’s surrounded by verdure that complements its rammed earth exterior, which seemingly bends the natural light to its will, as an example of a design rooted in its humid subtropical climate. The modest-size space embodies the same design principles and loamy tones featured in the studio’s projects throughout the capital city.

https://hubs.la/Q033-62S0

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If y...
01/25/2025

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If you haven’t checked them out yet, now’s the perfect time!

Format Architecture Office, the NYC-based studio, helps clients hone their vision with a focus on the driving forces behind each design decision. Led by principals and cofounders Andrew McGee and Matthew Hettler, NYC-based studio Format balances bold design with a sharp focus on functionality. Before building anything, the team cultivates a deep understanding of how people actually live and move within a space. Their highly collaborative process involves honing a client’s vision according to use, but it begins with uncovering the why of it all. “We like to place clients in the driver’s seat regarding their ideas for a project by asking, ‘What is your vision for this space?’ ” says McGee. “Because the word ‘vision’ implies all the extras—what you really want as opposed to just basic needs. I like to let clients sit in that more expansive space right away.”

https://hubs.la/Q033-0fb0

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If y...
01/25/2025

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If you haven’t checked them out yet, now’s the perfect time!

Forest to Frame: Why Portland’s Airport is a New Milestone for Mass Timber by Brian Libby

Beneath the nine-acre prefab wood roof and dozens of skylights, the new PDX’s tree-lined terminal designed by ZGF Architects is a marvel of material sourcing and construction.

Inspired by farm-to-table cuisine, ZGF and its consultant, Sustainable Northwest Wood, created a “forest to frame” approach. Wood was sourced from landowners and mills within a 300-mile radius of the airport, is either Forest Stewardship Council-certified or traceable to forests or landowners meeting equally forest-friendly practices. The team also prioritized sourcing wood from smaller mills, family forests, non-profits, and tribal nations.

“To me it’s a beautiful love story, of what happens when people and the land come together,” Anne Niblett of the Coquille Indian Tribe, whose forest in southwestern Oregon provided wood for the roof’s glulam beams, said at the terminal’s opening dedication.

This is not how the timber market normally works. When ZGF began the project, “You couldn’t answer how much wood came from, say, fire-resilience harvesting, or from small family-run forests doing good forestry,” recalls ZGF associate principal Jacob Dunn. Instead, “Forests get logged. The longs go into piles, go through a mill and they get turned into products. They’re not segregated by forest origin or landowner type. So there’s no way to say that this deck of wood came from this forest. It gets completely blended up. - Brian Libby

https://hubs.la/Q033-30C0

How to Help the Communities Affected by the Los Angeles Wildfires!In the wake of the devastating wildfires that have rav...
01/24/2025

How to Help the Communities Affected by the Los Angeles Wildfires!

In the wake of the devastating wildfires that have ravaged Los Angeles, the city’s design community has united to support those affected. From opening up their homes and offices to displaced individuals, to developing fundraisers, auctions, and resource-sharing Google Docs, those in the area are not only mobilizing to rebuild and prepare for future risks—they are experiencing the processing the effects of climate catastrophe in real time. While the future remains uncertain, the response underscores the strength and resilience of Los Angeles design community.

Affected by the Wildfires and Need Help?

Local architecture and design organizations and associations have acted rapidly to succor community members who have been affected by the fires. If you are a member of LA’s creative community and could use some support, follow link on bio for some resources for you to turn to.

https://hubs.la/Q033-0vx0

Modular Construction Provides a Solution to the Netherlands’ Housing Crisis. Moos's building system promotes diverse nei...
01/24/2025

Modular Construction Provides a Solution to the Netherlands’ Housing Crisis. Moos's building system promotes diverse neighborhoods through efficient, environmentally responsible, and socially inclusive construction.

Focused on reshaping the future of affordable housing, a Dutch start-up is spearheading a modular, circular building system with sustainability at its core. Moos unites experts who share a vision for positive change through forward-thinking design, construction, and development. In collaboration with the multidisciplinary architecture studio Concrete, they’ve introduced a groundbreaking, fully demountable construction model aimed at tackling the housing crisis in the Netherlands.

This crisis has reached a concerning peak, with Deloitte’s Living in Europe: Housing Trends and Prices 2024 report indicating that new-build homes now cost 16 times the average Dutch salary, and the waiting list for social housing can extend to almost 20 years in major cities like Amsterdam.

https://hubs.la/Q033ZVXB0

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If y...
01/23/2025

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If you haven’t checked them out yet, now’s the perfect time!

Our Net Zero Top Stories including the Houston Endowment’s new headquarters by Productura and Kevin Daly Architects

Net Zero architecture is not just about mitigating carbon emissions, but also integrates regenerative principles, community engagement, and forward-thinking design philosophies. The Houston Endowment headquarters by Productura and Kevin Daly Architects embodies this approach with its myriad energy-saving and sustainable features.

METROPOLIS has tracked the Net Zero movement over the last 14 years, showcasing milestone projects, key perspectives, and the way forward.

Now we've gathered all the vital stories in one place, so you can understand all there is to know about navigating the path to Net Zero.

https://hubs.la/Q033FBq_0

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If y...
01/23/2025

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If you haven’t checked them out yet, now’s the perfect time!

Can architecture wiggle out of the white box? Can cats, dogs, butterflies, and parakeets be clients of architecture? Are there new ways of building sustainably outside of the usual green design clichés?

These are among the provocations of Barcelona-based TAKK, a research-led architecture practice founded by Mireia Luzárraga and Alejandro Muiño. Beneath the vivid pink structures and avant-garde installations that have become emblematic of the celebrated 14-year-old studio lies an earnest interrogation of the role of architects during fragile times.

https://hubs.la/Q033Fn-P0

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If y...
01/22/2025

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If you haven’t checked them out yet, now’s the perfect time!

This 120 Year Old Brooklyn Building is now a Powerhouse for the Arts

Herzog & de Meuron and PBDW have transformed the 1904 Central Power Station of Brooklyn into a nonprofit arts fabrication facility. The Central Power Station of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company has sat watching over the Gowanus neighborhood since 1904. In the 1970s it was used for incinerating cardboard, and it fueled Brooklyn’s subways with mountains of coal until the 1950s, before its abandonment and subsequent occupation by a number of artist-squatters in the early 2000s. Now the building has returned in an excellent new incarnation as the nonprofit Powerhouse Arts fabrication facility, which has sought to retain traces of the prior eras (sans burning cardboard).

https://hubs.la/Q033w2Dx0

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If y...
01/22/2025

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If you haven’t checked them out yet, now’s the perfect time!

McDonald's Reimagines its Interiors through Radical Circular Design. A pilot program launching in McDonald’s France and Belgium aims to create sustainable interior renovations for the global fast-food brand.

The Beurs branch follows in the footsteps of two earlier circular pilot projects in France, designed by Antwerp-based studio WeWantMore helmed by Ruud Belmans and Thomas Vanden Abeele. WeWantMore’s multidisciplinary approach, working both as interior designers and as brand consultants, allowed the team to integrate McDonald’s global identity with cutting-edge sustainability practices developed by the firm’s materials research team.

https://hubs.la/Q033vX2h0

Snøhetta's ‘La Nube’ Museum Leverages Equity and Accessibility. The playful El Paso Children’s Museum welcomes learners ...
01/21/2025

Snøhetta's ‘La Nube’ Museum Leverages Equity and Accessibility. The playful El Paso Children’s Museum welcomes learners of all ages and abilities with bilingual signage and inclusive thinking.

With its cloud-like form, twinkling exterior lighting, and 77,000 square feet of imaginative, inclusive learning space, the El Paso Children’s Museum, known as La Nube, stands as both awe-inspiring and iconic for residents of the border city. Opened in August 2024, the Museum was designed through a collaboration between the global studio Snøhetta, local firm Exigo Architecture, and exhibit design firm Gyroscope. Its playful exhibits span four stories, each addressing themes like sustainability, regional identity, and the concept of “Blue Sky Learning,” which emerged from a yearlong public engagement process, according to Snøhetta Partner and Managing Director Elaine Molinar. La Nube aims to inspire boundless exploration for people of all ages and abilities while fostering cross-cultural connections with the Children’s Museum in neighboring Juarez.

“The first thing we did was to visit the site to ensure the design team learned about El Paso and enjoyed experiencing its rich culture as much as I did, growing up there.” – Elaine Molinar, Partner and Managing Director at Snøhetta

https://hubs.la/Q033l0dn0

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If y...
01/21/2025

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If you haven’t checked them out yet, now’s the perfect time!

Lorcan O'Herlihy Architects [LOHA] are expanding the definition for permanent supportive housing in Los Angeles

As California’s housing crisis has worsened, officials here have been working to make more underutilized land parcels available to affordable housing developers in the form of inexpensive leases. But these sites hadn’t been developed for a reason— many were lying on sites with difficult terrain, split into separate pieces, or sitting along heavy traffic corridors or even next to freeways. The 35,000-square-foot, 54-unit permanent supportive housing development for the formerly homeless, called Isla Intersections (both for its busy “island” location and for its intersection of housing, sustainability, and equity), is a potent model of what’s doable in housing if we’re willing to expand our definition of what’s possible.

https://hubs.la/Q033l4cM0

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If y...
01/16/2025

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If you haven’t checked them out yet, now’s the perfect time!⁠

Studio RAP by Florian Heilmeyer⁠

Looking at Dutch Studio RAP might reveal the architecture office of the future. Lucas ter Hall and Wessel van Beerendonk met at the Delft University of Technology, and following their graduation in 2014, launched their own practice with the goal of bridging the gap between digital design and physical construction. In school, says ter Hall, they learned how to create complex designs with the computer. But there wasn’t much about how to transfer these designs into reality. “Back then, only a few architects were doing parametric design, and even less knew about digital or robotic fabrication methods.” - As a start-up, the team got an office space in Rotterdam’s Makers District, and in the beginning, they rented a robot. “We don’t have rich parents and we didn’t get any funding, so at first we took any commission we could,” remembers ter Hall. By making models for other architects, museums, or artists, they learned what the robot could do. ⁠

https://hubs.la/Q032Q52x0

Metropolis is energized to be a Media Sponsor of the 2025 Design for Freedom by Grace Farms Summit! Join experts across ...
01/16/2025

Metropolis is energized to be a Media Sponsor of the 2025 Design for Freedom by Grace Farms Summit!

Join experts across sectors working to create a more humane built environment on 3/27 at Grace Farms, CT.

Register: https://hubs.la/Q031KP_j0

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If y...
01/15/2025

We’re sharing our TOP 15 POSTS OF 2024! These projects and stories captivated our readers the most on social media. If you haven’t checked them out yet, now’s the perfect time!

Fourth Ward on Atlanta's Beltline by Sam Lubell

Behind the Latest Megaproject to Rise Along Atlanta’s Beltline. The Beltline, a 22-mile stretch of trails and parks atop a former railway corridor circling the core of Atlanta, was, when conceived at the turn of the Millennium, dismissed by many in the city as a waste of time and money, or even a “glorified sidewalk.” In the years since, it has blossomed into the most successful urban regenerator since New York’s High Line.

Developer Jim Irwin, an Atlanta native, has been working along a formerly industrial section of the Beltline for over a decade. While with Jamestown LP, he helped lead the wildly successful adaptive reuse of a former Sears, Roebuck, and Co. store and distribution center into Ponce City Market, which has enlivened its neighborhood, the Old Fourth Ward, and spawned several new additions. Then he started his own company, New City Properties, and created 725 Ponce, a popular office and retail development with exposed concrete edges and oversized windows, rising over the Beltline on 60-foot columns.

https://hubs.la/Q032xDJD0

01/14/2025

Explore the revolutionary acoustic possibilities of eelgrass with Avi Rajagopal as he interviews Spinneybeck's Katie Thomas, and Søuld co-founders Tobias Øhrstrøm and Kirsten Lynge. Learn how centuries-old Danish traditions inspire sustainable innovation for modern interiors. Watch full video now: https://hubs.la/Q032k2Jc0

Join us for an eye-opening panel discussion, "Walking the Green Line: Navigating the Gap Between Greenwashing + Greenhus...
01/14/2025

Join us for an eye-opening panel discussion, "Walking the Green Line: Navigating the Gap Between Greenwashing + Greenhushing," on Thursday, January 16, at 1 PM ET.

Discover how to spot greenwashing, overcome greenhushing, and craft authentic sustainability messaging that builds trust.

Register now: https://hubs.la/Q031ZqD50

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