October 05, 2012Metropolis Magazine Announces Annual Next Generation® Design Competition Call for Entries
Winning Design to be Awarded $10,000. Entry Deadline is February 18, 2013
July 25, 2012
Opening Games: Next Generation winner designs for London’s East End
London Mayor’s office has commissioned an urban installation called BLOOM Games, by Bartlett architecture professor and Next Generation winner Alisa Andrasek, for Victoria Park in the East End.
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The Architect's Newspaper
A Backup Plan
November 22, 2004
By Karen E. Steen
When his study of leading task chairs revealed that most of them force the sitter into unhealthy postures, industrial designer Jeff Jenkins decided to start with healthy postures and work backward. “If you look at the commentators on CNN, they’re all perched forward,” he says. “If you’re intensely working on the computer or in a conversation with someone, you’re not really using the upper back of the chair.”
This gave Jenkins, who was designing a chair for his master’s thesis at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, an idea: separate the lumbar support from the rest of the chair back. “I carved up the back and allowed the lumbar to follow you in forward tilt,” he explains. “Then as you recline, the lumbar falls through what I call the ‘auxiliary back.’” The separation of the chair’s lumbar section was made possible by a lowered pivot point and a set of rollers under the seat, which increases forward tilt to encourage the spine’s natural curve.
Eight years later the resulting design—the Meta Chair—has continued to evolve as Jenkins has moved into professional practice. He has developed sustainable upholstery for the chair that’s a composite of wool, latex, and cork, and he recently completed a working prototype that he is shopping around to manufacturers. “I look at the Meta Chair as an antidote to the negative consequences of technology on the human condition,” Jenkins says. “Not that I’m against technology, but let’s face it: the human body was not designed to sit in a chair and operate a computer all day.”
January 21, 2009
The Freer Masons
Michael Silver’s new audio software liberates bricklayers from their paper plans.
January 12, 2009
A CASE in Point
2004 Next Generation Runner-up launches an original academic program
June 04, 2008
Growing Full Steam Ahead
November 01, 2007
Shelter from Taliesin to Manila
June 06, 2007
More on Molo
See what’s unfolding for a past runner-up
February 16, 2005
Updates: Forsythe + MacAllen, Lira Luis, Jeanine Centuori
Updates on 2004 Metropolis Next Generation® Design Competition runners-up Forsythe + MacAllen, Lira Luis, and UrbanRock Design/Jeanine Centuori.
December 22, 2004
Seattle Waterfront Plan Dealt Setback
Next Generation Design Competition runner-up Cary Moon and her People’s Waterfront Coalition were dealt a blow this week when Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels announced the city’s plan to replace the Alaska Way Viaduct with a six-lane tunnel.
December 01, 2004
A Place to Dock
Architect Lira Luis’s temporary shelter would give Manila seafarers someplace to come home to.
December 01, 2004
Building Blocks
A young designer finds a way to recycle plastics into reusable building components.
December 01, 2004
Flower Power
Landscape-architecture studio StoSS proposes a plan that uses phytoremediation to make brownfields into public gardens.
December 01, 2004
Reclaiming the River
Pete Seeger and friends promote a permeable swimming structure for the newly cleaned-up Hudson River.
November 22, 2004
Improv Theater
Architects often espouse the idea of adaptability, but they rarely give it center stage.
November 10, 2004
Software Aims to Revamp Masonry Practice
Michael Silver, a 2004 Next Generation® Design Prize runner-up, and the International Masonry Institute are developing Automason, a software program that delivers precise instructions to on-site masons.
October 01, 2004
Do the Strand
Seattle activists suggest that the best plan for a troubled waterfront freeway may be to eliminate it.
August 01, 2004
Radiant Living
Emergent turns infrastructure into ornamentation with a concept house based on systems of circulation.
July 01, 2004
Mapping the Competition ‘04
Where did all these ideas for the Metropolis Next Generation Design competition come from?
July 01, 2004
Accordion Architecture
A Canadian firm’s material experiments produce flexible living spaces.
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