We exhibit a new approach to the proofs of the existence of a large family of almost isometric ideals in nonseparable Banach spaces and existence of a large family of almost isometric local retracts in metric spaces. Our approach also implies the existence of a large family of nontrivial projections on every dual of a nonseparable Banach space. We prove three possible formulations of our results are equivalent. Some applications are mentioned which witness the usefulness of our novel approach.