Elemental

ELEMENTAL

Elemental was founded by Alejandro Aravena and Andres Iacobelli in 2000, who the met at Harvard

University, when they questioned why social housing is so bad in Chile, when Chilean architecture was

starting to get world recognition. They highlighted four conditions on how to create a real impact:

a) “Anything developed for social housing must be proven on a scale of the complex and not with just

one unit.”

b) “Projects presented on paper are futile. To confront the scepticism normally directed towards academic works, we had to build” (Aravena, A. Iacobelli, A. 2016: 30)

c) Working with the constraints of current market rules.

d) “Had to survey and formulate the right question (not invent it, instead of asking ourselves what would constitute a quality social housing project” (Aravena, A. Iacobelli, A. 2016: 30).

Elemental are considered widely to be the “starchitects of the poor” (Trevino, L. 2016). Their accolade in

the Pritzker Prize Laureate in 2016 was given world-wide media coverage in the architectural world, with

glittering articles from many world leading newspapers and magazines. Aravena’s curation of the Venice Biennale 2016 titled, “reporting on the front line,” has popularised social housing amongst architects becoming the poster boy of the movement. Thus, these “two

events and Aravena’s global fame are for us an excuse to

ask a simple question: is it possible to produce more social justice in the entrenched neoliberal present?” (Boano, C. and Vergara Perucich, F. 2016: 60). The half happy architecture

report by Camillo Boano and Francisco Vergara Perucich (2016) critiques Quinta Monroy and the 2016 Venice Biennale

in a different light to what the media has presented us with. “We were puzzled by the use of the word social architect.

After that then, we followed the opening speech of the 2016

displaced, literally, on top of a metal scale staring to the frontier of the yet to come experimentation of formalist architecture with a social look” (Boano, C. and Vergara Perucich, F. 2016: 59). It was here that I

discovered an alternative opinion to what is embedded within media outlets like Archdaily and The New York Times. Their work was “contesting its real contribution to the idea of good quality architecture for the poor,” (Boano, C. and Vergara Perucich, F. 2016: 59).

In 2001 at the University of Catolica in Chile, Andres Iacobelli was the head of a newly formed program relating to public policies. “Elemental became a case example of how a university could influence government policy, in this case, housing policy” (Aravena, A. and Iacobelli, A. 2016: 38). “If universities

have vital social function, it is form intellectuals. If intellectuals have a function, it is to generate ideas.

Ideas’ are a form of political and cultural imagination that can guide societies as they seek to manage change” (Miessen, M. 2006: 275). Elemental strive to use housing as something more than a shelter but

that as a tool to overcome poverty. Value appreciation for beneficiaries is a by-product of their concept and is “the most direct way to measure the quality of housing.” (Aravena, A. Iacobelli, A. 2016 p21) They aspire to create projects by challenging the current logic of building, “where the housing is close

to nothing, in underserved peripheries, marginalised from the opportunities that cities concentrate” (Aravena, A. Iacobelli, A. 2016: 14). Thus, due to this scarcity, people tend to expand their homes using

whatever materials they can within cities, developing slum like developments.

“Value gain has to be achieved knowing that people themselves will build a significant part of their homes,” (Aravena, A. Iacobelli, A. 2016: 21) This underpins the success of the scheme on the quality of

incrementality. In the eyes of the state, extending the existing provisions of clean water and improving

plumbing in urban areas, is a more efficient use of capital than to create new ones in rural areas, where

the population is a lot more dispersed. I should state the incremental housing isn’t something that is

new, during the sixties J.F.C. Turner implemented an incremental housing approach in the slums of Peru. The project was a huge success towards creating autonomy within the built environment. “what matters in housing is what it does for the people than what it is.” (Turner, J. and Fitcher, R. 1972: 102)

“Building social capital is a primary objective in this approach and is achieved by residents playing a

central role in decision making, believing they own the process, as they move away from being dependent.

Many case experiences suggest, that resident driven initiatives have a greater chance of success, because

have a sense of what will and work.” (Spatial Agency. 2016).

Elemental were to create an “exemplary incremental build project” (Wainer, L. et al. 2016: 23), as the

appropriate solution to resettle one hundred families on a shanty site in Iquique, where they had been

occupying it illegally. The illegal nature of the settlement was due to a dispute after the death of Ernesto Monroy and “a judicial dispute among the heirs began overregulating the site and holdings with rental contracts” (Aravena, A. and Iacobelli, A. 2016: 85). Over the course of thirty years there had been many

failed initiatives, but they hoped that they could include one of their current University schemes, the heavily incrementality reliant “Parallel Building”. By using state subsidiaries, they note that “if the money

can only pay for around forty square metres, instead of thinking of that size as a small house, why don’t we consider it as half a good one?” (Aravena, A. Iacobelli, A. 2016: 17). Suggesting construction of the half that the average family would struggle to build on their own (see fig.6). They were able to “work within the framework of the VSDsD – That is 300UF or US$7,500 per family – we could buy the land that

cost three times what social housing could afford and still have enough money to build homes for one hundred families” (Aravena, A. and Iacobelli, A. 2016: 39).

Aravena’s approach to social housing is modelled on a middle-class blueprint, as an aspiration to

alleviate the working class’ social status via a promotion of housing typology. Instead of drawing from inspiration of J.F.C. Turner, when he “uncovered the effectiveness of self-organisation practices in the

peri-urban bariadas of Lima and the extensive range of tactics and innovations that urban poor had to

offer. Informality and poverty were stated to be seen as a site of potentiality to learn from, rather than a mere problem to solve. (Boano, C. and Vergara Perucich, F. 2016: 69).

“Community building is a holistic approach that focuses on the efforts of the people. It is dedicated to

the idea that residents must take control of their density and that of their communities. Community

building grows from a vison of how communities’ function normally, where community members create institutions that help achieve their aspirations as well as strengthen their fabric.” (Spatial Agency. 2016)

An aspect of community building resides in the workshops of the Quinta Monroy scheme. Committees

were created to facilitate the other residents, that didn’t benefit from the architectural assistance, during

the primary incrementality phase. Governing what could, or couldn’t be built, installing a sense of

collective control over the settlement. Whilst also educating methods of accessing state funds to make

additional improvements to the courtyard areas. Happiness of the residents wasn’t a seamless trajectory

from start to finish, with a proportion reluctant to move into a temporary camp, moreover as additional reductions occurred in not receiving initial bedroom or water heater. “The gradual dismemberment of the slum generated unforeseen tension and difficulties” (Aravena, A. Iacobelli, A. 2016: 120).

The square metre value of the typical middle-class home is translated into the final design of The Parallel Building, although at hand over, it has only constructed half, we have “to understand that incrementality

doesn’t mean to simply leave a construction unfinished and wait for each individual to complete it. Incrementality has to be designed” (Aravena, A. Iacobelli, A. 2016: 18). Designed to benefit who?

Elemental “belong to Angelini’s, a company that owns

questionable businesses such as Empresas Copec and Forestal Arauco” (Boano, C. and Vergara Perucich, F. 2016: 66). One can speculate that as Forestal Arauco sell

the type of timber panels that appear in the aesthetic of the incrementality phase (see fig.7), could there a darker side to the incrementality? Yet, “Elemental’s solution is

as far from challenging the architectural discipline as it

is from representing an innovation in the history of social housing.” (Boano, C. and Vergara Perucich, F. 2016: 68).

The struggle Elemental have to face is the repercussion

of its neoliberal past and present. Housing schemes

Fig. 7 Quinta Monroy after the incrementality phase with locals enjoying the courtyard area.

economy. “forty years ago, with a GDP that was ten times lower as the present one – Chilean social housing

used to have European standards. While, today the social housing projects by Elemental for low-income communities to live in half-designed, weak architectural proposals.” (Boano, C. and Vergara Perucich, F. 2016: 69). Funding for social housing in Chile is somewhat available but lacking any real capital to

actually create the difference within the lives of whom social housing harbours. When money is limited the natural “alternative is to reduce size and quality and frame the problem as incremental housing” (Aravena, A. Iacobelli, A. 2016: 17). Using this lens, one can envision self-construction as a solution rather than a problem. “Evidence shows that self-construction actually requires considerable financial

and building capacity. The real scarce resource then is not so much about money, but coordination.” (Aravena, A. Iacobelli, A. 2016: 17).

What the neoliberal world order has installed, is a priority measure of GDP. Elemental’s Ivy League

background has conditioned this thought process. Contrary to this belief, the President of Bhutan at a TED talk, mentions the policy of the country being governed above any monetary gain, by “Gross Domestic Happiness (GDH)” (Tobgay, T. 2016). Can the world restore any socialist values from its past or are we too far capitally orientated? “Therefore, social housing is becoming a pathway to debt, which results in the reproduction of the capitalist landscape” (Boano, C. and Vergara Perucich, F. 2016: 63). The failed capitalist structure seeks alternatives for housing. Aravena exhibits “a good way to include

the less privileged in the banking system, by providing land tenure and promoting entrepreneurialism” (Boano, C. and Vergara Perucich, F. 2016: 63). Which is why the Pritzker award seems less of a focus

of the actual architecture and more to one of that bares the economics fruits, to be well situated with

the neoliberal climate. This “may sound a bit disturbing to those architects that are actually socially engaged, or that practice an embedded, action-orientated and transformative architecture.” (Boano, C. and Vergara Perucich, F. 2016: 65). As the award proposes “to honour a living architect or architects

whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vison and commitment, which

has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture.” Boano and Perucich (2016) don’t directly say that Aravena and his practice weren’t

deserved of the award, but instead the award brings centre stage, the urgent discussion surrounding its misleading nature, that recognises Quinta Monroy as the epitome of social housing. “The radical change

related to this critique that involves not only the lived experiences of alientation, objectification, and self-

hatred, but also the more fundamental systems of oppression responsible for those experiences, is left and abandoned and packaged for being consumed in exhibitions and ceremonies” (Boano, C. and Vergara Perucich, F. 2016: 65).

CHAPTER

3

ANALYSIS (CASE STUDY, QUINTA MONROY) - MEDIA RECOGNITION - FINANCES - PROTOTYPE - THE ARCHITECTURE - COMMUNITY & IDENTITY