Domus 958 sets the stage for a new kind of focus with Brooklyn-based SO - IL architects. In their practice, SO - IL relinquish control to introduce deliberate ambiguity — by leaving things open and unfulfilled, they introduce an appropriable space for common exchange. Such is the case with their project for the Kukje Gallery in Seoul, depicted in the May cover. In this façade, 40,000-ring swaths of chainmail are required to be spliced together by hand in order to create a single, continuous chainmail surface, creating a layer between the orthogonal gallery box, and the dynamic environment in which it is situated.

The May issue of Domus travels to São Paulo's Teatro Oficina, the legendary performance machine designed by Lina Bo Bardi, and to South Africa, where Noero Wolff architects self-consciously engage with the spatial inscription of the memory of apartheid. In Iraq, we survey Al-Zawraa, Baghdad's extensive park and home to the city's zoo, and, in the Kurdistan region, explore the indelible marks and scars from decades of Saddam Hussein's bloody ethnic persecution, the contradictions of which are still evident in the built environment.

Table of contents

Cover
Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu di SO – IL: fragment of a structural model of a project developed by Front Inc.

Editorial: Focusing in the fog

Op–ed: Costa Concordia. A European tragedy
Joseph Grima

Journal
Edited by Elena Sommariva

Photoessay: Great Baghdad Garden
Antonio Ottomanelli

Between matter and meaning
Sam Jacob visits two newly completed buildings designed by SO – IL, Kukje Gallery's K3 building in Seoul and the Logan offices in New York. Text Sam Jacob. Edited by Laura Bossi. Photos Iwan Baan

A theatre in the jungle
At the Teatro Oficina, the legendary performance machine designed by Lina Bo Bardi in São Paulo, Brazil. Conversation José Celso Martinez Corrêa and Grupo Teatro Oficina, Daniela Castro José Lira, Roberto Zancan. Research Jeremy Galvan. Edited by Rita Capezzuto. Photos Pedro Kok

Zarvos's Idea
In São Paulo a time-honoured urban transformation strategy has been relaunched: using quality architecture to settle conflicts and create a dense, collective and less defensive city. Text Roberto Zancan. Photos Pedro Kok

Shaping memory
South Africa and post-apartheid: Noero and Wolff's Red Location Cultural Precinct, Nina Cohen and Fiona Garson's Wits Art Museum, and 26'10 south Architects' Taxi Rank. Text Christian Ernsten. Photos Iwan Baan, Mark Lewis. Edited by Laura Bossi

Network: Arco House
In the Arco House by Pezo von Ellrichshausen, the concept of economy translates as structural honesty. Text Umberto Bonomo

Manhattan rainbow
Dan Wood and Amale Andraos transform a two-storey truck loading dock into the new Children's Museum of the Arts. Text Gideon Fink Shapiro. Edited by Laura Bossi. Photos Ari Marcopoulos

Interior with stairs
A domestic space, reduced to its bare essentials, reveals the underlying principles that inform Francesco Librizzi's work. Text Stefano Mirtia. Edited by Laura Bossi. Photos Giovanna Silva

Evaporated spaces
Philippe Rahm's "invisible architecture" takes shape in a small apartment in Lyon. A domestic environment distinguished by its different climatic identities that harmonise with those of the client. Text Alexandra Midal. Edited by Rita Capezzuto. Photos Nicolas Pauly

Light algorithms
Offspring of the project "132 5", the new collection of lamps designed by Issey Miyake exemplifies the potential scope for textile research. Text Salvator-John A. Liotta. Edited by Loredana Mascheroni. Photos Iwasaki, Yasuaki Yoshinaga, Miro Zagnoli

Supernormal: From books to infrastructure
Text James Bridle. Edited by Rita Capezzuto. Series edited by Dan Hill

Network: Lafayette 148 Headquarters
According to Marc J. Neveu, the Lafayette 148 Headquarters in Shantou, China, isn't simply another fashionable facade. Text Marc J. Neveu

A journey to the other Iraq
Francesca Recchia. Edited by Loredana Mascheroni

Reporting from within
Francesca Recchia. Edited by Loredana Mascheroni

Rassegna
Building materials. Edited by Rita Capezzuto

Panorama
Edited by Guido Musante

Cold Case
The inhabited dwelling. Edited by Luigi Spinelli