Domus 1048 on newsstands: “The nature of our imagination”

Taking stock of where we stand in relation to nature, Bernd Scherer explains how the “coronavirus crisis is exposing the Anthropocene structures underpinning our environment”. It is time, he argues, to develop “a new alphabet of life and society”, based on the “logic of relations” rather than growth, and to imagine new organically inspired spatial conditions for living.

Luis Fernández-Galiano warns of the centrifugal forces that our urban centres generate, “colonising the landscape” with structures that undermine both “civic virtues and pastoral beauty”. While we cannot change our need for material spaces – even in an increasingly digital world – we must make our cities more compact and define their boundaries if they are to become the sustainable ecosystems we need them to be.

Reinforcing this hard boundary is “actually the most honest and effective way of showing respect to nature,” writes Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani. This also involves acknowledging that even the informal green spaces within our cities are artificial, “subtracted from nature”, and that urban design must reassert itself as an “autonomous discipline” painstakingly constructing the foundations for ever better urban form.

Finn Williams has sought to change this trend by working for local authorities and establishing a programme helping others to do the same. His role is now “translating” between sectors and disciplines, drawing them closer in the process and changing the way we understand good practice today.

Housing in stone, Paris, Barrault Pressacco

Chris Marker student residence, Paris, Éric Lapierre Experience

Dwellings and shelter, Paris, Muoto

For Jessica Helfand, design is “a solo endeavour” that relies on patient resourcefulness and experimentation. Generating, cultivating and harvesting ideas are all part of the sustainable permaculture of design.

These designers find inspiration in the “sincerity of materials”, production processes, dialogue and even dismantling Even the simplest objects can fascinate us for decades.

For theatre director Robert Wilson, it is the chair – an enduring feature in his work and personal collection. At once furniture pieces, sculptures, stage props and characters, they are endlessly crossing boundaries. “I never thought of theatre design as decoration but as something architectural,” Wilson says.

This month we look at Paul Robbrecht’s freehand drawings for an exhibition that marked a significant moment at the start of his career. The act of drawing was a “conversation” with himself, bringing a sense of order to newly designed spaces within a historical building.

Tim Snelson helps to disentangle the often paralysing complexities of architecture’s environmental impact through its embodied carbon. From the measurements and analysis emerge some key changes we should make, including curbing the insatiable desire to build taller.

Sustainable change will first require acknowledging the “true configuration of the Milan region”. Taking us briefly away from our present, Aida Edemariam reflects on a place that marked her childhood in Addis Ababa.

Much has been said of using the lockdown to make lasting change in our cities, particularly in the area of mobility. Giorgio Goggi reports from Milan and questions the logic behind the recent “Open Streets” policy.

Fulvio Irace delves into the Domus archive to revisit the work of Emilio Ambasz, whose influential thinking about the relation between the “artificial” and “natural” in architecture seems more relevant today than ever.

One of the cornerstones of contemporary architecture is a heightened awareness around the issue of sustainable building. Great attention has to be paid not only to the choice of materials and technologies developed with a conscious respect for the environment but it is also necessary to consider a building’s lifecycle. Building redevelopment is the economic engine that drives a large part of architectural design and as a result, the flexibility of the architectural envelope is key when it comes to envisaging possible changes of use for a building as well as making improvements to energy performance. Here we can see a number of examples in this review of construction technologies and solutions.

The picture on this month’s cover, by Thomas Demand, is a recreation of the facade of the modest Reykjavik apartment building, designed in 1973 by Ormar Þór Guðmundsson and Örnólfur Hall, where Bobby Fischer, chess grandmaster, passed the last three years of his life.