“Over half of Mongolia is completely nomadic,” said Jordan Metzler, a second-year architecture master’s student and 2025 Aydelott Travel Award recipient.

With his topic in mind, Metzler focused on Mongolia’s traditional dwelling, the ger, which helped his proposal’s theme and other sites emerge.

“The ger is more like a kind of vernacular architecture. It’s not designed by an architect. While the rest of my sites may be static, what’s happening inside is always changing.”

His other sites, the Quinta Monroy social housing in Iquique, Chile, the Tempelhof Airport in south-central Berlin, Germany, and Bangladesh’s Jatiya Sangsad complex, all contributed to his focus on navigating flux and environmental transitions that shape communities.

“We met to discuss ordinary challenges as much as exceptional potentials for Jordan planning his journey,” said Hansjoerg Goeritz, professor of architecture and advisor for Metzler’s award. “It is a great joy witnessing his curiosity and being invested in such cultural diversity, attempting to broadly look to ‘all corners of the globe’ as an impressive and laudable open view on the world.”

With support from Goeritz and through individual discovery, Metzler connected with firms to gain deeper insights and experiences prior to his travels.

Beginning his summer travels in Mongolia, working with a community-based adventure travel organization and Rural Urban Framework, Metzler experienced nomadic life in Khövsgöl Lake and the capital and most populous city of Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar.

“I think in a lot of countries, like the United States, there were people who were living nomadic lives at some point and now we are static,” he said. “In Mongolia, you have the opportunity to still witness it in real time, but the government has somewhat incentivized moving to the city.”

The ger districts, located outside of Mongolian settlements like Ulaanbaatar, Metzler experienced the nomadic structure in a place of permanence.

“Now there are fences put around their houses. They have outhouses, and some have electricity and portable water, but they don’t have access to plumbing,” he said. “Despite the incentivized to move to the city, they’re not necessarily providing the infrastructure needed there.”

In Bangladesh, Metzler visited the Jatiya Sangsad complex—Louis Kahn’s monumental Parliament building—which served as a counterexample to all other sites. While the structure itself remains steadfast, its function reflects the country’s shifting political landscape. Closed to the public in May amid governmental change, the building had reopened by the time Metzler arrived in July—but it was being used for different purposes as leadership transitioned. The experience illustrated how even architecture designed to symbolize stability can take on new, temporary roles during moments of national flux. For Metzler, the Parliament’s endurance amid uncertainty revealed how permanence in architecture is always defined by those who inhabit and govern it.

Metzler did his most traveling in Chile where he visited sites of social housing in three distinct regions. His main site, ELEMENTAL’s Quinta Monroy, introduced Metzler to a type of incremental housing which allowed the individual to have a level of ownership over the property.

“In the US, I feel like a lot of workforce housing is you rent it,” he said. “I was just thinking about flux and change and ELEMENTAL’s work is an example of people are taking ownership of their own building and changing it.”

He continued in Constitución, where housing supports the local logging industry, and concluded in Santiago, where he toured ELEMENTAL’s newest development just days after its first residents began moving in.

His final location, Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport, a site that embodies the city’s layered and often paradoxical history. Originally conceived as part of the Nazi vision for a “world capital,” the monumental structure later became a symbol of hope during the Berlin Airlift. Today, its immense halls stand largely unused, maintained but quiet.

Metzler described the experience of touring the airport as “liminal,” a word that captures Tempelhof’s in-between state as sporadically changing enclave.

“It is clean and kept up, but it feels stuck in time,” he said. “It reminded me of an old mall back home—maintained but mostly empty, like it’s waiting for its next purpose.”

Part of the structure now houses refugees, primarily from Syria and Ukraine, while the massive airfield outside has become a public park. He was struck by the juxtaposition: a site once defined by borders and flight, now serving as a haven for displaced people, and a gathering place for Berliners.

Through his travels, Metzler explored how architecture both shapes and responds to the movement of people—how structures can serve as vessels of permanence or expressions of change.

The Aydelott Travel Award and Aydelott Prize was founded in 2016 by Alfred Lewis Aydelott, FAIA, and his wife Hope Galloway Aydelott, the award helps architecture students at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; Auburn University; Mississippi State University; and the University of Tennessee develop effective analytical skills.