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.
all >>
The Architect's Newspaper
Flower Power
December 01, 2004
By Nicholas Anderson
U.S. cities are contending with the legacy of industrialization in the form of vacant lots too polluted for development. To deal with this problem in the former textile hub of New Bedford, Massachusetts, planners sought help from the landscape-architecture studio StoSS. “Essentially the city came to us and said, ‘We have all these brownfield sites—what do we do with them?’” founding principal Chris Reed recalls. The firm’s plan, “Phyto-Harvesting: The New Civic Garden,” proposes that a series of vacant lots be transformed into public gardens until they can be safely developed.
“There are any number of plants that are good at taking up one kind of contaminant or another. You would simply program in a sequence of these to attack the different contaminants that you might find in the ground,” Reed says of a process known as phytoremediation. For example, sorrel, cattail, and clover planted successively would cleanse the soil of the industrial by-products petroleum, zinc, and lead. Some species would also serve in a sort of public-relations capacity. “Sunflowers and mustard are actually stunning plants—people notice them,” Reed says. “You get people’s attention, and it gives them a sense for what’s going on here.”
Once funding is secured, the plan’s execution will rely on community participation to keep costs to a minimum and allow for a flexible timeline. With the EPA’S approval residents and environmental groups would help cultivate brownfields, and schools could use the lots as agricultural classrooms. A mildly contaminated site could be turned over for development within a couple of years; but with neighborhood interest, it might also become a semipermanent garden. In its final phase a lot might be used to grow trees that would ultimately be transplanted to the surrounding streets.
“Brownfields are becoming more and more available,” Reed says. “This is something that could be applied in many cities across the country.”
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
Reclaiming the River
Pete Seeger and friends promote a permeable swimming structure for the newly cleaned-up Hudson River.
November 22, 2004
A Backup Plan
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.
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.
Back to Top