Michael Hynds

Michael Hynds is principal and founder of Metropolitan Architecture Studio, an architecture and urban planning firm focusing on sustainable and resource efficient architecture. Michael is a registered architect in Ohio and Pennsylvania. Metropolitan Architecture Studio’s mission is to create resource efficient neighborhoods, landscapes, and architecture which work in harmony with the environment, while reducing carbon emissions and sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. These sustainable developments will help preserve our precious natural resources.

Michael has been involved with sustainable design since his graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania in 1988, where he studied architecture and landscape architecture. His early influences include Ian McHarg and Edmund Bacon. He is continually researching emerging technologies from various fields such as biology, ecology, and nanotechnology. In 1992 he was awarded the Young Cleveland Architect Medal by the American Institute of Architects for his sustainable design innovations in architectural design and urban planning.

He received his Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Before forming Metropolitan Architecture Studio he practiced architecture and urban design in Boston where he completed sustainable college and university architecture projects including science classroom buildings, research and development laboratory buildings, and business school buildings at Harvard University, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has also taught architecture and urban design as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State University, and Kent State University.

His recent work at Metropolitan Architecture Studio has received Smart Growth Awards, and Historic Preservation Awards. Current projects include the design for the latest neighborhood master plan and mixed use loft building at Rockport Square-a mixed use, transit-oriented, pedestrian friendly, sustainable neighborhood development in Lakewood, Ohio; the design of Mound School-a LEED Silver k-8 school in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District; the design of a sustainable master campus plan for the Saint Ann Church and School- a Catholic Parish in Cleveland Heights, Ohio; and the design of green classrooms at the University School Lower Campus-a k-8 private school in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

Michael participates in numerous sustainable design organizations and serves on several committees including: the Climate Change Committee, and the Higher Education Committee at the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE); the American Institute of Architects Urban Design Committee; the American Institute of Architects Council on the Environment (COTE); the United States Green Building Council (USGBC); the Cleveland Green Building Coalition (CGBC); the American Planning Association (APA); ASHRAE; the Nanotechnology Network of Northeast Ohio; and the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU).