What is Instagram? How do you use it? Why would you use it?

KI’s Aiden McGuire, IIDA’s Christa Payton, MarketSavant Group’s Dana Van Den Heuvel and Metropolis’ Kimberly Taylor and Grace Ehlers deliberated on the power of the social networking tool during the hour-long KI Social Media University webinar, entitled “InstaWham! The Power of Instagram in the Design Community”. Despite some skeptics in the audience (one quarter responded to a live poll that they felt Instagram was a fad), 69% of the audience felt that they would try Instagram out after the webinar for new product ideas and inspiration. And despite the 66% of the audience who ranked Pinterest as higher on their design industry “Wham-o-Meter,” the panelists agreed that Instagram’s average of 10,000 likes per second was a force to be reckoned within the design community and our global community at large.

If you missed our InstaWHAM webinar, you can view it in its entirety here:

InstaWHAM! The Power of Instagram in the Design Community from Metropolis magazine on Vimeo.

Since 2007, Metropolis, with editor in chief, Susan S. Szenasy has traveled to more than 35 cities and 150 architecture firms, design organizations, and industry shows in the United States and Canada delivering the Metropolis Tour. With the help of various sponsoring companies through the years, this Metropolis-produced CEU-accredited film screening and discussion program continues to inspire, intrigue, and challenge today’s practicing professionals in architecture, interior design, product design, and engineering. Sponsors for 2013 include KI, Kimball Office and Universal Fibers.

In 2007, our editor took a close look at the winners and runners-up from our annual Next Generation Design Competition and decided that the projects, products, and ways of working submitted as competition entries were not only forward-thinking—they were inspiring, innovative, and brilliant. The magazine decided to produce a new film for the Metropolis Tour program based on these individuals and teams. In mid-2008, Brilliant Simplicity was born. The film is as inspiring now, as it was four years ago.

The film delivers an overview of what so many innovative designers are doing to have a positive impact on the world while maintaining a commitment to achieving excellence in design. It’s proof that good design and sustainability can effectively coexist on all scales. It emphasizes the necessity for research and an ever-widening collaboration that, in the most fortuitous circumstances, can lead to innovation. And today, that word, innovation, has become our culture’s mantra.

From the largest and smallest offices of Gensler, Perkins+Will, HOK, LPA, NBBJ, Leo A Daly, and SOM to the various groups at Studios Architecture, Callison, Mithun, Shepley Bulfinch, and Cook+Fox, we’ve gained insight further into our own industry, and the culture of the design firms, and we’ve learned from each audience in a different way.

In her May 2010 Notes column, Lifelong Learning editor Szenasy states that “the future is clear: designers need to learn cross-disciplinary teamwork; to create a more sophisticated understanding of sustainable design; to reach out to larger communities and groups that have a voice in reshaping the urban form; to harness a new generation’s enthusiasm for saving the environment as well as its understanding of technology and connectivity.”

The film had a slow start before the design world fell off the cliff as the 2008 recession hit. Then it picked up momentum as design firms began to redefine themselves for the “new normal” and it continues to ignite conversations about the importance of research, collaboration, and innovation. LPA Architects in Irvine, CA documented the Metropolis Tour program they hosted in June:

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Earlier this month, Metropolis editors called out the top spaces, products, and ideas that we really liked at Greenbuild, in integrated social media coverage known as Metropolis Likes. We sought out design solutions and messages we deemed forward-thinking, useful, and meaningful; not necessarily a new product launch.

Our favorite concepts were awarded plaques, Metropolis Likes which are produced by 3M Architectural Markets using 3M Crystal Glass Finishes. The plaques became a visual guide to Greenbuild—helping attendees spot must-see spaces, products, and ideas.

Created with flickr slideshow.

The partnership between Metropolis and 3M Architectural Markets continues to celebrate the most forward-thinking ideas at industry trade shows; it generates an online conversation for the global design community around the creative breakthroughs. The program was so successful at this year’s ICFF and NeoCon that we decided to continue it at Greenbuild in San Francisco, where it has certainly kept up its momentum.

Design enthusiasts around the world followed our editors’ picks via  #MetropolisLikes as each selection was announced live with photos via Twitter, Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.

Congratulations to all that Metropolis Likes from Greenbuild Expo 2012! And special thanks to 3M Architectural Markets for a great collaboration.

Alera: Micro6 LED Luminaire
The Micro6 LED luminaire reduces energy consumption through intelligent controls that are unparalleled in simplicity of use, flexibility of design, and ease of installation.

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Attention New York metropolitan area designers and architects: If you didn’t make it to Greenbuild, held this year in San Francisco’s Moscone Center, you may want to catch up on what the 25,000+ (final figures not yet released) attendees saw and heard there. Even if you were there, in that heated caldron of green activity, you like everyone in attendance, were able to see on a small part of the educational sessions and product offerings at the conference and trade show.

We’re here to help. Back by popular demand, Greenbuild Show Snapshots, Metropolis’s collaboration with Davis & Warshow for the fifth year in a row, will present an overview and some topics that caught our attention this year. In the meantime, check out footage of the fun from last year’s Greenbuild Show Snapshots cocktail event, followed by a panel discussion lead by our editor-in-chief, Susan S. Szenasy with HOK’s director of design, Kenneth Drucker and Turner Construction’s chief sustainability officer, Michael Deane. Over 100 members of the A&D community came to mix, mingle, munch on local, sustainable, seasonal, and delicious hors d’oeuvres and get an inside look at the top projects and innovations from the show and share their own experience.

Greenbuild Show Snapshots Cocktail Hour from Metropolis magazine on Vimeo.

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Last Thursday evening marked the finale of Duravit’s Design Week in New York City, a three-day celebration with films, trivia, food, wine, cocktails, and design discourse. It fell to Metropolis to add content to the proceedings by engaging two leading architects, an interior designer, and an industrialist in a discussion about the cultural forces that shape healthcare design around the globe.

The innovative bathroom products company, known for working with such designers as Norman Foster, partnered with Metropolis magazine for the evening’s discourse on “Global Wellness: A Discussion on Cultural Distinctions in Design,” led by editor-in-chief Susan S. Szenasy. The topic was inspired by the article, “A Culture of Caring,” in the current issue of the magazine, in which architect Mohammed Ayoub gives a fascinating account of the differences between designing such things as bathrooms in the Middle East and India. Ayoub, design studio lead & associate vice president and Brooke Horan, senior interior designer, both from HDR Architecture, were joined on the panel by Henry Chao, principal and healthcare design director, HOK, and Duravit’s CEO Frank Richter who flew in from Germany for the occasion. 

Duravit was celebrating three exciting new launches from Philippe Starck, Frank Huster, and Sieger Design, and guests entered a raffle to win an Oasis Signature Package at Oasis Day Spa in NYC.

Follow social media posts by searching the #DuravitDesignWeek hashtag, and enjoy the slideshow below:

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