The Reality of Elemental Social Housing Architecture

Text: Balázs Rose

In the 2000s, Chile’s social architecture gradually evolved into the focus of global professional interest, thanks in particular to the spectacular architecture and effective communication of Alejandro Aravena (Elemental). Aravena and his fellow architects have identified architectural quality and the so-called incremental housing methodology as the basis of their social architecture. Their easy-to-understand theoretical theses and attractive photographs of early social housing estates quickly became internationally famous and used as a point of reference, but nowadays little is known about their reality and the direction in which they are evolving. This research seeks to explore this issue. It brings together and surveys the most important theoretical and practical architectural milestones that preceded the Elemental housing estates and focuses on two examples of the two basic types (with open and closed façade designs) explored in this study – namely the Quinta Monroy in Iquique and the Renca in Santiago ‒ some 15 to 20 years after their inauguration. The article will discuss the controversial critical reception of Aravena’s social architecture. The research will begin with a review of primary literature, contemporary research and critical texts, and will then support its hypothesis with on-site photographic reports and the help of a Chilean researcher. The text aims to provide a clearer view of the reality of the self-sustained social housing methodology in Chile and compares Arvena’s theoretical theses wwith the present-day conditions of the Elemental estates, presenting the essential differences between the open and closed typologies, thus ambitioning to have a critical assessment of the projects.