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Join us every second Tuesday of the month for a dose of optimism with thought-provoking guests who are revolutionizing their fields. Innovators will lead virtual workshops for an hour of discovery, inspiration, and community. Led by editor in chief, Avinash Rajagopal, these workshops will be guided by our audience, where questions are not only welcome but encouraged.

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Metropolis Editors, Natural Habitat, sustainability, sustainable architecture

METROPOLIS Introduces Natural Habitat, a Sustainable Homes Video Series

The series debuts with a tour of a tranquil upstate New York retreat designed with Passive House principles.

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May 28, 2024

Discover the Cutting-Edge Ideas Transforming the Built Environment

METROPOLIS’s Spring 2024 issue explores new approaches and technologies in architecture and interior design today.

By: Avinash Rajagopal

Innovation in architecture and interior design can happen in many ways. Sometimes change comes through optimizing forms, spaces, materials, and workflows till every project achieves the biggest impact with just the right and sufficient inputs. But once in a while we see ideas with transformative potential for the built environment—new ways of working with people, money, ideas, and tools that, once discovered, cannot be denied their importance.

MODU’s research into the nebulous zone between inside and outside is one such perspective. That singular focus has led the Brooklyn-based firm to a number of fruitful experiments with microclimates, biophilia, structures, and climate-adaptive building elements—many of which the architects have been able to implement and test in real-world projects. 

Similarly, a shift in thinking about passive house from a goal to a means has transformed the potential for sustainable living. With energy efficiency as a stepping-stone rather than the prize, firms around the world are reaching for much more ambitious goals with multiple benefits in historic preservation, affordable housing, public health, and local economic growth.

“Once in a while we see ideas with transformative potential for the built environment—new ways of working with people, money, ideas, and tools that, once discovered, cannot be denied their importance.”
Avinash Rajagopal, METROPOLIS editor in chief

You will see this kind of potential run through the stories in this issue. Mae-ling Lokko is reimagining the built environment as a grown environment, derived from cultivation and agriculture rather than extraction and manufacturing. Landscape architect Walter Hood weaves his magic at the International African American Museum in  Charleston, South Carolina, to prompt conversations about a painful past. And we look at the digital tools that are changing how we conceive and realize the built environment—some of them powered by artificial intelligence, others motivated by needs and perspectives that have simply never been considered before in architecture and design practice.

Here are all the stories from the Spring 2024 issue:

Features

Frontiers of Technology

More from the Spring Issue

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