Quinta Monroy. The neibourhood of the poor

Public and private entities collaborate effectively in solving a housing problem in Chile.

Text by Antonie Manolova

Alejandro Aravena comes from Chile, a peripheral country, far from influential economy and culture hubs. Interestingly, this architect attracted international attention greatly due to his capacity to find an answer to a real problem, that “peripheral” societies have. The urban poor – how can a government provide decent housing to them, without exceeding its budget in subsidies, and without unnecessarily displacing people out of their current habitat and into some unfamiliar and distant outskirt? Alejandro Aravena, besides being principal of his own practice, is also Executive Director of Elemental*, a multidisciplinary Do Tank, incorporating architects, the Chilean oil company COPEC and the Universidad Catolica de Chile. It’s aim is to find solutions to the housing deficit in Chile, especially for state subsidized housing projects.
The first built project of Elemental, providing better quality housing for low-income families was in Iquique. This city is a port with a Free Trade Zone in the North of Chile, surrounded by the driest land on Earth – the Atacama desert. The Quinta Monroy neighbourhood in Iquique was where Aravena and his colleagues first tested between 2003-2004 what they accumulated as theoretical influences from inspiring sources other than architecture. These come through certain intellectual networks. Personalities include economist Hernando de Soto, and his idea that “an asset as a house can have parallel life like a capital resource, which eventually can allow you to overcome a situation of poverty”. Another such mind is Rakesh Mohan, an economist from the Reserve Bank of India. Harvard and the Rockefeller Foundation have been very supportive too. “We always knew that our job is about to address problems that are not architects’ problems” shared Aravena to Sebastian Paredes C. in an interview, while working in Mexico on a similar commission in 2008.
Recently the hybrid Do Tank Elemental has been working on housing schemes in Brasil, Mexico and China.

More about the project on p. 50 – 63 in the new issue of Abitare Bulgaria.