Alejandro Aravena
Pritzker Prize-Winning Architect | Designer of Social Housing That Dignifies Communities
About
Alejandro Aravena won architecture's highest honor, the Pritzker Prize, for designing social housing that transforms how communities live. His firm Elemental creates 'half-houses'—structures residents can expand as their circumstances improve.
A Venice Biennale participant since his student days, Aravena combines aesthetic excellence with social mission. His keynotes challenge conventional thinking about design, demonstrating how constraints can drive innovation and how architecture can address inequality.
Talks1
My architectural philosophy? Bring the community into the process
When asked to build housing for 100 families in Chile ten years ago, Alejandro Aravena looked to an unusual inspiration: the wisdom of favelas and slums. Rather than building a large building with small units, he built flexible half-homes that each family could expand on. It was a complex problem, but with a simple solution — one that he arrived at by working with the families themselves. With a chalkboard and beautiful images of his designs, Aravena walks us through three projects where clever rethinking led to beautiful design with great benefit.
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