Metropolis Books

Green Patriot Posters

Edited by Edward Morris, Dmitri Siegel. Text by Michael Beirut, Thomas L. Friedman, Steven Heller, Edward Morris, Dmitri Siegel.

This book brings together the strongest contemporary graphic design currently promoting sustainability and the fight against climate change. Collectively, essays by Michael Beirut, Steven Heller, Edward Morris and Dmitri Siegel look back in time to posters and ideas that set the stage for the current movement (World War Two posters, images of international cooperation, posters from the environmental movement in the 1960s and 1970s) and address the state of the poster: what is the efficacy and mode of distribution for purposeful, message-oriented graphic images today? Thomas L. Friedman advocates for "a redefined, broader and more muscular green ideology that can be the basis of a new unifying political movement for the twenty-first century." The bulk of the book is given over to a compilation of the best posters on the theme of sustainability by a variety of contemporary artists (both emerging and established), among them Shepard Fairey, Michael Beirut, DJ Spooky, James Victore and Geoff McFetridge. These posters, which have a strong graphic presence and which never rest on the tired slogans of the past ("Save the Earth," etc.), show that graphic design does not passively respond to the zeitgeist--it helps shape it. The book, which is sustainably printed in the U.S., reproduces 50 of these posters as tear-outs. Also included is a section on action, with documentation of designs at work in the world: on buses, billboards, protesters' placards, graffiti, t-shirts and so on. This movement is about a new form of patriotism, one that exhibits pride of place, but not fear of others.

The Power of Pro Bono

Edited by John Cary, Public Architecture. Foreword by Majora Carter. Preface by John Peterson.

A first-of-its-kind book, equally representing the voices of architects and their clients, The Power of Pro Bono presents 40 pro bono design projects across the country. The clients include grassroots community organizations like the Homeless Prenatal Program of San Francisco, as well as national and international nonprofits, among them Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity, KIPP Schools and Planned Parenthood. These public-interest projects were designed by a range of award-winning practices, from SHoP Architects in New York and Studio Gang in Chicago, to young studios including Stephen Dalton Architects in Southern California and Hathorne Architects in Detroit, to some of the largest firms in the country, such as Gensler, HOK and Perkins + Will. Scores of private donors, local community foundations and companies, and material and service donations made these projects possible. So have some of the most progressive funders in the country, ranging from Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation in New Orleans to the Robin Hood Foundation in New York. Taken as a whole, the selected works represent six general categories: Arts, Civic, Community, Education, Health and Housing. This book is inspired and informed by the advocacy and design work of Public Architecture, a national nonprofit founded in 2002 by San Francisco-based architect John Peterson. The 1% program of Public Architecture challenges architecture and design firms nationwide to pledge a minimum of one percent of their time to pro bono service, leveraging in excess of $25 million in donated services annually.

Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People

By Emily Pilloton. Foreword by Allan Chochinov.

In January of 2008, with a thousand dollars, a laptop and an outsized conviction that design can change the world, rising San Francisco-based product designer and activist Emily Pilloton launched Project H Design, a radical non-profit that supports, inspires and delivers life-improving humanitarian product design. "We need to go beyond 'going green' and to enlist a new generation of design activists," she wrote in an influential manifesto. "We need big hearts, bigger business sense and the bravery to take action now."
Featuring more than 100 contemporary design products and systems--safer baby bottles, a high-tech waterless washing machine, low-cost prosthetics for landmine victims, Braille-based Lego-style building blocks for blind children, wheelchairs for rugged conditions, sugarcane charcoal, universal composting systems, DIY soccer balls--that are as fascinating as they are revolutionary, this exceptionally smart, friendly and well-designed volume makes the case for design as a tool to solve some of the world's biggest social problems in beautiful, sustainable and engaging ways--for global citizens in the developing world and in more developed economies alike. Particularly at a time when the weight of climate change, global poverty and population growth are impossible to ignore, Pilloton challenges designers to be changemakers instead of "stuff creators." Urgent and optimistic, a compendium and a call to action, Design Revolution is easily the most exciting design publication to come out this year.
Emily Pilloton is the founder and Executive Director of Project H Design, a global industrial design nonprofit with eight chapters around the world. Trained in architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, and product design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Pilloton started Project H in 2008 to provide a conduit and catalyst for need-based product design that empowers individuals, communities and economies. Current Project H initiatives include water transport and filtration systems in South Africa and India; an educational math playground built for elementary schools in Uganda and North Carolina; a homeless-run design coop in Los Angeles; and design concepts for foster care education and therapy in Austin, Texas.
Allan Chochinov is Editor in Chief of Core77.com, and writes and lectures widely on the impact of design on contemporary culture.

GREEN PATRIOT POSTERS
Edited by Edward Morris, Dmitri Siegel. Text by Michael Beirut, Thomas L. Friedman, Steven Heller, Edward Morris, Dmitri Siegel.
ISBN: 9781935202240 | US $30.00
Forthcoming | Awaiting stock

THE POWER OF PRO BONO
Edited by John Cary, Public Architecture. Foreword by Majora Carter. Preface by John Peterson.
ISBN: 9781935202189 | US $40.00
Forthcoming | Awaiting stock

DESIGN REVOLUTION: 100 PRODUCTS THAT EMPOWER PEOPLE
By Emily Pilloton. Foreword by Allan Chochinov.
ISBN: 9781933045955 | US $34.95
Active | In stock

DESIGN LIKE YOU GIVE A DAMN: ARCHITECTURAL RESPONSES TO HUMANITARIAN CRISES
Edited by Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr.
ISBN: 9781933045252 | US $35.00
Active | In stock

EXPANDING ARCHITECTURE: DESIGN AS ACTIVISM
Edited by Bryan Bell and Katie Wakeford. Foreword by Thomas Fisher. Texts by Steve Badanes, Roberta M. Feldman, Sergio Palleroni, John Peterson, Katie Swenson, et al.
ISBN: 9781933045788 | US $34.95
Active | In stock

LOOKING AT LOS ANGELES
Edited by Marla Kennedy and Ben Stiller, with Jane Brown and Craig Krull. Essay by David L. Ulin.
ISBN: 9781933045047 | US $85.00
Active | Awaiting stock

OVERLOOK: EXPLORING THE INTERNAL FRINGES OF AMERICA WITH THE CENTER FOR LAND USE INTERPRETATION
Edited by Matthew Coolidge and Sarah Simons. Essay by Ralph Rugoff.
ISBN: 9781933045337 | US $34.95
Active | In stock

ROBERT POLIDORI'S METROPOLIS
With Martin C. Pedersen and Criswell Lappin.
ISBN: 9781891024986 | US $65.00
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THE UNCOMMON LIFE OF COMMON OBJECTS
By Akiko Busch. Edited by Diana Murphy. Foreword by Susan S. Szenasy. Original illustrations by George Skelcher.
ISBN: 9781933045061 | US $27.50
Active | In stock

CHASING THE PERFECT: THOUGHTS ON MODERNIST DESIGN IN OUR TIME
By Natalia Ilyin. Foreword by Susan S. Szenasy.
ISBN: 9781933045214 | US $30.00
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EDIBLE ESTATES: ATTACK ON THE FRONT LAWN, 2ND REVISED EDITION
Preface by Fritz Haeg. Text by Will Allen, Diana Balmori, Rosalind Creasy, Fritz Haeg, Michael Pollan, Eric W. Sanderson, Lesley Stern, et al.
ISBN: 9781935202127 | US $24.95
Active | In stock