Chris Martin Smith is a licensed architect and founder of Metonym Architecture. In 2013 he graduated from the University of Oregon with concurrent degrees in Architecture (B.Arch) and Spanish (B.Arts) where he was a three-time dean's list recipient. Upon graduation he moved to NYC to begin his career. After working for over a decade he returned to academia, completing a MsC at Columbia University’s GSAPP in Advanced Architectural Design.
His focus involves research and design speculation between the human and non human relations inherent in a destabilized climate. That one not only affects the other, but actually is the other. In other words, Metonym, in this usage, is the architectural or ecological gesture by which a nonhuman participant comes to stand in for — and actively perform — a dimension of human meaning (memory, mourning, dwelling, cohabitation) without being reduced to symbol.
He is also an athlete and has a marathon PR of 2:28; this was set while working a full-time job as an architect.
