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Throughout 2012, the cover and first four pages of Domus will function as an open platform for reflections on what it means to design today. In February, this space is given to Rahul Srivastava and Matias Sendoa Echanove of URBZ. Based in Dharavi, Mumbai, where Domus pays them a visit, this collective believes that the most effective way to improve the future of our cities is to empower their inhabitants through design. From India, we travel to South America, where the faith in contemporary architecture as a means of social intervention is embodied in a news sports centre in one of Colombia's poorest urban settlements, built by Giancarlo Mazzanti and financed by pop star Shakira. In this issue, Domus presents the new concrete table by Lucidi Pevere for Kristalia, and inspects the bookshelves reflecting the many facets of Eva Franch i Gilabert, the director of New York City's Storefront for Art and Architecture.

Complete Table of Contents

Cover
Tahir Ali, construction worker in Dharavi, is a member of the category defined by URBZ as "city builders". URBZ suggests that self-organisational strategies, combined with the knowledge of workers such as Tahir, can be more effective than housing programmes. Photo by Niccolò Morgan Gandolfi

Editorial: Home-grown homes
Every home tells a story—its making and its use, the way its dwellers have shaped it over time, the moments they lived inside, what it used to be, what it may become. Text by Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava, Urbz

Op–ed: Goodbye Sori Yanagi
Jasper Morrison

Journal
Edited by Elena Sommariva

Photoessay: LA Look
Niccolò Morgan Gandolfi

The engineer, the gardener and the architect
In the project by Tatiana Bilbao S.C a botanical garden provides an ideal way to bring contemporary art out of the silent rooms of museums and closer to the people of Culiacán, Mexico. Text by Alejandro Hernández Gálvez. Photos by Iwan Baan. Edited by Laura Bossi.

A city within a city
The Red Bull Music Academy by Langarita-Navarro Arquitectos converts part of Madrid's former slaughterhouse into an experimental centre for the production and performance of contemporary music. Text by Ariadna Cantis. Photos by Luis Díaz Díaz, Miguel de Guzmán. Edited by Laura Bossi

A forest of polyhedrons
A world-famous singer, Shakira, and a young Bogotá architect, Giancarlo Mazzanti, join forces to bring a new sports centre to one of Colombia's poorest urban settlements. Text by Lorenza Baroncelli. Photos by Jorge Gamboa. Edited by Laura Bossi

Crowdsourcing the city
Rahul Srivastava and Matias Sendoa Echanove believe that the best way to improve the future of cities is to empower their inhabitants through design. Text by Joseph Grima. Photos by Niccolò Morgan Gandolfi. Edited by Loredana Mascheroni

The unexpected side of objects
For Zurich-based duo Kueng Caputo reality is a palette to be sampled and recombined, producing gracefully conceptual works of design. Text by Francesca Picchi

Domesticated brutalism
A new table by Lucidi Pevere Design Studio. Text by Chiara Alessi. Photos by Delfino Sisto Legnani. Edited by Francesca Picchi

Last stop: Avtobusniki
In a village near Moscow built to house the employees of a public transport company, decommissioned Ikarus 280 buses, legendary mainstays of Soviet public transportation, find a new life as impromptu architectural prostheses. Text by Sergei Kulikov. Photos by Alexei Naroditsky. Edited by Laura Bossi

The importance of being axonometric
Information Design has become crucially, Michael Stoll, a university teacher and collector, explains to Elisa Pasqual and Marco Ferrari the basic principles and the vast scale of this discipline. Interview by Elisa Pasqual, Marco Ferrari. Edited by Laura Bossi

Network: Vennesla Library, Norway
Einar Bjarki Malmquist visited the cultural centre, by Helen & Hard, balanced between sophistication and simplicity

States of Design 10: Social design
The dedication with which architects and designers strive to achieve even small improvements in living conditions opens up new perspectives not only for design, but also for politics and the management of public and private sectors. Text by Paola Antonelli. Edited by Francesca Picchi

A Letter from Any Ever
The worlds of Ryan Trecartin,Elad Lassry and Kerstin Brätsch. Hyper-artificial, phantasmic and exposed to an over-stimulation of colours and sounds, they feature lives that are played out within an increasingly invasive digital dimension Text by Massimiliano Gioni. Edited by Loredana Mascheroni

Network: The Legacy Plan
Sonic landscapes and unexpected perspectives as a final homage to Merce Cunningham. Mimi Zeiger reports

Unpacking my library: Eva Franch i Gilabert
The literary diet of Eva Franch, director of Storefront for Art and Architecture, is almost as diverse as her legendary wardrobe—which is largely the product of her own sartorial prowess. Interview by Gianluigi Ricuperati. Photos by Yoo Jean Han. Edited by Rita Capezzuto

Rassegna: Bathroom
Edited by Francesca Picchi

Panorama
Edited by Guido Musante

Horoscope: Aquarius
Text by Dan Graham and Jessica Russel. Edited by Elena Sommariva

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