Best of #August

Innovation and critical reflection on contemporaneity.

These are the most appreciated topics by Domus Web’s readers in August: applied to design, in Naomi Kizhner’s project Energy Addicts, a jewellery to reflect about how far will we go to in order to “feed” our electricity addiction in the world of declining resources and in Functional 3D Printed Ceramics, designed  Olivier van Herpt to “bake in” the randomness, uniqueness into the mechanical process; but also to archicture whit Architecture-by-Bee, where Geoff Manaugh and John Becker imagine a new urban bee species to be used as a low-cost biological tool for repairing statues and architectural ornament, even producing whole, free-standing structures such as cathedrals.

Marco D’Eramo attracted an interesting debate with his Op-ed about Unesco – seen as a serial killer of cities that, with the label “World Heritage”, drains the lifeblood from glorious villages and ancient metropolises, embalming them in a brand-name time warp – to which Michiel van Iersel replied with the provocative-titled article “Unesco is not ISIS”.

Also art and photography explore current issues such as, respectively, the deep, passionately-committed and demanding relationship that has always existed between man and plants – described from the point of view of social conflict in the exhibition “Vegetation as a Political Agent” hosted by PAV – Parco Arte Vivente in Turin – and the signs of human interference with water in the ongoing series Waters by Hungarian photographer Ákos Major.

Among the most popular architectural projects of August: Housing at the old city wall, a building complex with a mountain village like structure, designed in Berlin by Atelier Zafari; Casa da Severa, a housing unit in Lisbon transformed by into a cultural equipment; the House in Madesimo by Consalez e Rossi and Scaramellini; the House in Macheon, designed by Studio_GAON combining traditional Korean architectural elements with western construction methods, creating a mix of past and present, multi-region and multi-climate under a single roof; lastly the Anti-Office, a workplace designed by Park + Associates to celebrate informal spaces and to reveal in the masquerade of commonplace office functions.

Best of #August:
– Energy Addicts
– 3D Printed Ceramics
– Architecture-by-Bee
– Urbanicide in all good faith
– Unesco is not ISIS
– Vegetation and politics
– Waters
– Housing at the old city wall
– Casa da Severa
– House in Madesimo
– House in Macheon
– P+A: Anti-Office

Top: Ákos Major, Lullaby, Ko Yao Noi, Thailand 2014