How to Specify for a Happier World

METROPOLIS’s 2024 Products Issue proves that a materials renaissance is under way—and it’s great for people and the planet.

A MEETING I HAD AT HOK’S NEW YORK OFFICE this spring gave me goose bumps. Christine Vandover, principal and senior project interior designer, and Elizabeth Baxter, senior sustainable design specialist, took me behind the scenes on the firm’s Sustainable Material Tracking initiative—a comprehensive effort across HOK’s global offices to move material selections in interior design toward sustainability, health, and equity. Now in its fourth year, the initiative persuaded 26 offices to track nearly 5,900 materials and products over 134 projects, with astounding results: 60 percent had Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs), 95 percent used FSC-certified wood, and, most surprising of all, 20 percent of products were categorized as reused or biobased.

Those are truly heart-gladdening numbers, but that’s not what thrilled me. I was excited, rather, to take a peek at the rigorous but simple-to-use working sheets the team behind the initiative had created; to know about the hours spent in helping and coaching teams around the world; and to learn about the resources they had created to support their peers, including a set of training videos, “so when we have new staff we direct them to those videos so that they can get up to speed quickly,” as Baxter explained.

The Mississippi Workshop in Portland, Oregon, was designed and built by Waechter Architecture as a proving ground for all-wood construction. Photo courtesy Arthur Hitchcock.

I felt privileged to get this peek behind the curtains at HOK, but I also know that scores of architecture, design, and construction firms across the country have their own initiatives under way. Not all of them are as comprehensive, perhaps, but each initiative is tailored to the firm’s needs and context. 

Some architecture firms are signatories to the 2030 Commitment, and are working hard on drawing down the carbon emissions of their work (only six years to deadline!). Others have signed on to the AIA’s Materials Pledge to adopt a multidimensional approach. But many practices are starting small, and that is equally laudable.

At an event METROPOLIS organized with Crypton this past May, Luke Lasky, studio director at hospitality design firm Parts and Labor Design, shared that his team now pushes clients to prioritize “real, honest materials”: wood and stone, not their synthetic imitations. The room burst into “aah”s and head nods at this—every single sustainability expert immediately appreciated how this simple criterion could translate into a powerful impact.

We are in the thick of a materials renaissance in the built environment. It is a long-overdue and painstakingly complex undertaking—and it has an enormous importance to the future of all life on this planet. 

Yinka Ilori with his collection produced by textiles and wallcoverings brand Momentum, using all healthy or circular materials. Photo by Evan Jenkins.

The 2024 Products Issue is METROPOLIS’s latest contribution to that renaissance. 

Every product you will see in the articles below is thoughtfully conceived and responsibly manufactured. We’ve included deep dives into how some product collections were conceived—see how Yinka Ilori has used sustainable materials as a platform for joy, optimism, and cultural innovation. Materials expert Kenn Busch provides an easy guide to forestry management, reclaimed wood, and carbon sequestration, while associate editor Jaxson Stone provides some product picks at the intersection of color trends and neuroaesthetics.

If you’re already on the journey to more sustainable specification, thank you and Godspeed! If you’re starting to change the way you select products, use the articles below to pick one better option, at least, and don’t hesitate to ask METROPOLIS for help—we’re always just a message away on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Let’s build for a happier, regenerative world, together! 

Read every story from our 2024 Products Issue:

Building Products

Wood

Circularity

Workplace

Color

More Products

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