Poverty is an extraordinary source of inspiration. It is an adversity, but it can turn into riches. Destitution, instead, offers no hope. It takes root physically and mentally and it only generates more destitution. Poverty can be invoked and become a choice. It has a great strength, because it spurns the superfluous. It separates the necessary from the useless, and it rejects excess, effrontery and luxury.

The projects published in this issue deal with the topic of Poverty through a variety of approaches and disciplines, from Kengo Kuma’s V&A Dundee to the two houses designed Maria Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo in Modica. Public spaces and buildings such as the “mechanical animal” of Marinilla Educational Park in Antioquia by El Equipo Mazzanti, or Gando’s primary school and library by Kéré Architecture in Burkina Faso, are featured in the October issue.

The columns of Domus 1028 include “On the Couch” a conversation with the chef Massimo Bottura, while “Travel” brings us in Gibuti, “Cinema” narrates a movie on the social housing of Robin Hood Gardens in London, and aligns with the topics of the column “Archive,” curated by the Canadian Centre for Architecture, on the relationship between building technology and housing through a sulphur concrete block.

Cover image: illustration by The Blue Chemist