" My Architectural Philosophy? Bring the community into the process" Alejandro Aravena the 2016 Pritzker Prize laureate

Sustainability, Design & Disrupt 

My Architectural philosophy?

 Bring the community into the process

Alejandro Aravena the 2016 Pritzker Prize laureate

“If there is any power in design, that’s the power of synthesis.” 

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.

Alejandro Aravena works inside paradoxes, seeing space and flexibility in public housing, clarity in economic scarcity, and the keys to rebuilding in the causes of natural disasters.

"You need to find the right question. There is nothing worse than answering the wrong question well."

Why you should listen

Throughout his career, Alejandro Aravena has grappled with what he calls the “double condition of cities.” Attracting people, knowledge, development and opportunities on one hand, the Chilean architect says cities also concentrate and magnify social pressures. Through Elemental, the firm he founded in 1994, Aravena has devoted as much time to the design of iconic structures like the San Joaquin Universidad Catolica's “Siamese Towers” and Santiago’s Metropolitan Park as he has to the design of flexible and beautiful low-cost housing for low-income families. The firm's work is not just about buildings, but about shaping lives.

What others say

“Aravena's plans extend far from the standard considerations of building and line, into theories of social organisation and civic engagement. He's designing buildings, but he's also designing cities they will occupy and the livelihoods of the people who will live in them.” — Bruce Watson, The Guardian

Alejandro Aravena: My architectural philosophy? Bring the community into the process by TED Talks  (CC BY NC SA).

 

More Information: archdaily.com/tag/alejandro-aravena

TED is a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less). TED began in 1984 as a conference where Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics — from science to business to global issues — in more than 100 languages. Meanwhile, independently run TEDx events help share ideas in communities around the world.
 

Our Mission: Spread ideasTED is a global community, welcoming people from every discipline and culture who seek a deeper understanding of the world. We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and, ultimately, the world. On TED.com, we're building a clearinghouse of free knowledge from the world's most inspired thinkers — and a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other, both online and at TED and TEDx events around the world, all year long.

In fact, everything we do — from our TED Talks videos to the projects sparked by the TED Prize, from the global TEDx community to the TED-Ed lesson series — is driven by this goal: How can we best spread great ideas?

TED is owned by a nonprofit, nonpartisan foundation. Our agenda is to make great ideas accessible and spark conversation.

Source: ted.com