Metropolis Magazine - Metropolis Magazine August 2005
Acts of Remembrance
Metropolis competition finalists explore ways of honoring the dead.
Well Heeled
“I design my shoes like chairs,” Julia Lundsten says. “The heels are like the chair legs; and the leather uppers, where you place your foot, are like seats.” The Finnish designer is the daughter of an architect and an interior designer, and her desire to work with structural elements led her to study footwear rather than couture. Lundsten feels it…
Family Reunion
In Texas two brothers create a modern tribute to their Vietnamese roots, uniting three generations.
Urban Oasis
A commercial corridor in Phoenix promises better sales for merchants—and shade for pedestrians.
Faster Plaster
Asterisk Designs transforms an old-world technique into a flexible and portable option.
Tools You Bake
A German manufacturer of industrial parts gets into the cake business.
The Insiders
Metropolis introduces five emerging interior design practices reshaping space and redefining the creative process.
Surprise Fillings
Materially speaking, there’s great variety at Café Darclée—a new Seattle spot serving crepes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. “The concept came from the simple structure of the crepe itself: flour, egg, and water,” says Julia Sandetskaya, of local interior architecture studio MusaDesign. “When you combine a crepe with interesting fillings, it creates unexpected fusions. So we decided to use materials…
Wrinkle-Free
Scott Henderson’s Z-Series ironing board for Polder.
No Rules
At Milan’s Salone Internazionale del Mobile this spring, the conceptualist Swedish product designers of Front exhibited a video game called “The Representation of Things.” They reengineered an existing game to explore qualities of objects that might not be available when working purely in real space—an idea that began as an outgrowth of creating nonmaterial forms with 3-D modeling software. While…
Aquatic Aspirations
Can an upscale Miami Beach island change the world?
Community Impact
Bentonville—one of the fastest growing cities in northwest Arkansas and the location of Wal-Mart’s headquarters—is getting a new art museum and cultural center. In May the Walton Family Foundation (created by the founder of the giant retail chain) unveiled Moshe Safdie and Associates’ design for the 100,000-square-foot Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, a glass-and-wood structure sited on 100-plus acres…
School Survey: 2005
Research—Its Role in North American Design Education
Building Block
By rendering the most basic urban element vertically, MVRDV gives rise to a distinctive housing model.
Tending The Herd
At a farm in rural Holland, Claudy Jongstra raises sheep, revives the ancient art of felting, and creates singular textiles.
Back to the Future
The update of Chicago’s Hilliard Center is a reminder that affordable high-rise housing can work.
Artek’s British Import
Tom Dixon updates a classic collection.
The Peace Maker
As he works on the landscape at the de Young museum in San Francisco, observers wonder: can Walter Hood bridge the divide between public space and in-your-face architecture?
A Matter of State
NEA design director Jeff Speck launches a program to improve regional planning—by educating governors.
Oh Brooklyn, My Brooklyn
It’s not so easy being a cheerleader for future-forward architecture when the future is right outside your window.
