In order to understand urbanity today, it is necessary to grasp the material dynamics of the mobilisation and constitution of metropolitan territories and, at the same time, more specifically, the urban ‘projects’ that are articulated or try to overlap with the former. Here are some clues for reflection: on the one hand, in the transition from the industrial city to the post-industrial megalopolis, the transformations in the modes of production, accumulation and labour itself and, on the other, the consequences of these transformations on the urban project. It's about reflecting on the encounters and mismatches between the material transformations that traverse and (re)structure metropolitan spaces and the political, economic and, above all, design actions that simultaneously try to deal with these dynamics, determine them or are determined by them. Is the crisis the city's or the project's, the way of designing itself? And how can design contribute?