Domus 1070 is on newsstands, an issue dedicated to the right to change the past

In the editorial of Domus 1070, the guest editor talks about a new trend for architecture: prolonging the life of buildings by interweaving the existing with new inventions, such as Viollet-le-Duc.

Lecturer and director of the Historic Preservation course at Columbia University's GSAPP, Jorge Otero-Pailos writes about the need to think architectural design through the life cycle of its components: a way of creating meaning by relocating materials through space and time.

Architect Laura Fregolent reflects on the pressure exerted by tourism on Venice, but also on the main Italian and European historic centres, has heavy implications on the physical and social fabric of cities.

When the challenge is to engage with the existing, the Shanghai-based practice shows great skill in working with proportions, surfaces, textures and detailing, shunning the rhetoric of form.

Envisioned as a house atop a rock, the teahouse is elevated above a rammed concrete base, while its sweeping copper roof echoes the roofline of the enclosed architectural relic.

A former military building used by the Japanese army in the 1930s, where the real effort in this project was to contain the restoration and resist the urge to correct any defects.

Three years ago, the firm won the design competition, accepting the challenge to design a distillery for the first whisky produced in China by Pernod Ricard. Bounded on three sides by a stream, the site exemplifies the Chinese concept of duality of natural elements.

In an urban village (cheng-zhong- cun), remnants of pre-industrial settlements are nestled amid a seemingly modern metropolis. Nantou City, where this 11-room guesthouse is located, is one example of such a village. The project is inspired by the scenes of daily life in the city’s alleyways.

Created for Rotterdam Architecture Month, the elevated walkway draws attention to urban rooftops and their potential as public space.

Part of the regeneration of the city centre, the project renovated and expanded the existing hotel. By hybridising architecture, landscape and art, the new structure provides a frame of reference for the Maebashi of the future.

A large undulating surface of cast-in-place concrete unifies three buildings of an old disused glassworks and creates a public square that gives the industrial complex a new identity as a cultural centre.

Integrated into the landscape and partly underground, the military fort near the Dutch town has been reclaimed and set in an urban park. The memory of the place is now combined with new cultural and educational activities. 

A true pioneer, Pesce has treated design as a form of art, and always with an eye to social issues. His approach is recounted in a major solo exhibition devoted to his work, which has been travelling to the principal Chinese museums.

Journalist Olivier Schmitt analyses the chain of command that governs construction everywhere, stating that “the buildings of tomorrow must also belong to all of us: to those who are sensitive to the beautiful, the just, the useful, the durable”.

The envelope is the pavilion’s element that required the greatest conceptual and aesthetic effort: a metal shell clad in 10,000 organic photovoltaic cells.

There are plenty of refined references for the new Camper store in Rome designed by Piovenefabi: Sottsass, Archizoom and David Hockney, plus the baroque architecture of the nearby Piazza di Spagna.

On Venice’s San Giorgio Maggiore island, in the rooms of Le Stanze del Vetro, the exhibition “FontanaArte. House of Glass” proposes a retrospective to explore the creations of the prestigious Italian furniture and lamp brand produced under its four legendary art directors.

Opened in October 2021, Le Terrain is an interior with a public vocation and great visual impact, designed by Office Abrami Rojas, in Paris, in the 12th arrondissement.

Alessandro Pellini tells the story of the family business starting from recent years, marked by major and unexpected challenges

Editor-in-chief Walter Mariotti dedicates the opening page of the fifth issue of DomusAir to the role of infrastructure in times of crisis such as the one we are experiencing: it enhances the ability of institutions to serve citizens and accelerates respect for the environment.

The new Doha Metro Network is an urban project designed to create public spaces that enhance the urban experience at pedestrian scale and build new habits for the Doha community.

LaGuardia Airport’s new Terminal B, with two island concourses accessed from the main terminal through two pedestrian bridges, reflects the soul and the conformation of the city. A soul that is also highly technological.

Innovations in public transport will offer an increasing range of choices for getting from door to door, depending on our situation and the purpose of our journey.

Mobility-as-a-Service is a smart way to move around the city efficiently and independently, with positive effects on daily life. As has happened in Birmingham, Alabama.