15 Must-Reads to Help You Prepare for 2022

It has prompted us to create a slew of new initiatives and platforms to help architects and designers combat climate change. In June, we launched the first Metropolis Sustainability Hackathon, bringing together 60 participants representing A&D, real estate, construction, manufacturing, industry associations, and clients to create the Climate Toolkit for Interior Design. Meanwhile, we worked with ASID, IIDA, and IDC to develop the Interior Design for Positive Impact Pledge, the first comprehensive interior design framework focused on the future of the profession on the triple pillars of climate, health and equity. Throughout the year, we have published projects that represent new frontiers in sustainable practice.

In August, our 40th Anniversary Edition shined a spotlight on stocks, and for good reason. Inequality is not a by-product or aggravating factor of crises such as global warming or pandemic – it is a structural cause of these problems. If we cannot ensure that design benefits all people fairly and equitably, then we doom ourselves to failure in our efforts to tackle the climate crisis and the health crisis.

this is the reason Metropolis 2021 ends with a call for embodied justice to be recognized as a key concept in architecture, and why our list of 15 must-read books below begins with the topic of equality and inclusion.

We hope that you will find valuable insights and inspiration in these articles, and they will in turn continue to inspire us with your creativity and resilience in 2022. Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year!

Perspectives on property rights

Why don’t black companies work on slavery memorials?
A new Virginia memorial is the latest cultural project to acknowledge the debt to enslaved African Americans. But the more famous commissions and contracts are rarely awarded to African American companies.

Six typical initiatives for ways to practice true design justice
Around the world, architects, designers and planners are redefining what it means to be an advocate in the design professions.

Can Kraft save America?
A trio of galleries seek to rediscover something about our nation through the work of its makers and artists.

A New Concept of Good Architecture: Embodied Justice
As the social justice movement flourishes and the concept of carbon embodied in the climate conversation shifts, architects and designers are re-examining the profound impact of their work.

Preparing for Metaverse

Shape Follows Imagination: The Rise of the Dreamscapes Movement
At the intersection of architecture and advertising, there is a new aesthetic movement in digital art that blurs fact and fiction.

A pink neon structure rises in the Metaverse
Digital designers Penny Orr and Cyril Lancillin discuss the four-story NFT environment, The Meeting Place, and the possibilities of engineering the metaverse.

responses to the pandemic

What makes an ideal workplace?
From virtual reality to circular design, this is Metropolis’ vision for today’s dream office.

Can manuals and toolkits help us design a safer present or future?
Nearly a year after the COVID-19 pandemic, architecture and design firms across the country have shared many toolkits and guides, but will they help build a future rooted in equity?

David Benjamin’s Venice Biennale installation makes the case for probiotics life
While some experts seek to protect us from pathogens, others argue that we must learn to live with microbes.

A pandemic blueprint for architecture
How uniform standards applied across the built environment can protect our communities from COVID-19 and future pandemics

The opportunity to combat climate change

Biden should not miss the opportunity to build back greener
A group of architecture, engineering, and construction firms are calling on the Biden administration to use the Build Back Better program to raise the level of industry sustainability.

The American Jobs Plan should help us avoid climate catastrophe, not build a carbon bomb
Billy Fleming, Wilkes Family Director of the Ian L. McHarg Center at the University of Pennsylvania, examines the American Jobs Plan and its implications for the design industry.

around the world

The new Hong Kong Museum M + is a beautiful, contrasting study
The impressive building, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, underlines Hong Kong’s cultural dominance while amplifying the region’s inevitable political tensions.

This is what the first used German house looks like
Outside Hanover, Germany, a curious client and an innovative architecture firm are pushing the boundaries of the possibility of building using recycled materials.

6 projects that made the Netherlands the global capital of adaptive reuse
A recent wave of mega projects has transformed five Dutch cities and is encouraging the creative reuse of abandoned industrial sites around the world.