Year in Review 2018: 9 Lessons from Architecture, Design, and Cities

Metropolis tapped experts from across the design world to help articulate the year’s biggest takeaways—from resiliency to workplace productivity, diversity, and beyond.

year review 2018 architecture design metropolis magazine
A slew of recent work has examined the sustainable potential of plastics, long seen as emblematic of environmental degradation. London-based Charlotte Kidger’s Industrial Craft collection uses polyurethane-foam dust—a by-product of CNC manufacturing—to create new furniture. Courtesy Charlotte Kidger

2018 has been a big year—there have been revelations around architecture’s #MeToo moment, the social and urban ramifications of resilience planning, and the return of sustainable plastics, just to name a few.

In each of the essays below, our contributors dwell on these developments and explore how we should practice, frame, and respond to the challenges at hand.

You may also enjoy “Metropolis’s Best of 2018: The Year’s 6 Biggest Design Trends.”

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