Lo Barnechea

By Suzanne Stephens

ELEMENTAL/Alejandro Aravena

Santiago, Chile

Long-term residents of an informal community in danger of being priced out of a district of metropolitan Santiago are able to stay near schools and jobs owing to the construction of subsidized housing. The money came from the municipality and the ministry of housing; each family pays $2,300 per dwelling. ELEMENTAL, led by Alejandro Aravena, designed 150 connected houses for the first phase, placing the poured-concrete-and-ceramic brick structures, painted white, around a courtyard on a 1.5-acre site.

ARCHITECT: ELEMENTAL, a design firm led by Alejandro Aravena in partnership with Chilean Oil Company and Catholic University.

BUDGET: Cost of each house is $37,800, including land and infrastructure.

CONTEXT: The 1.5-acre site of a former informal community in an expensive district in metropolitan Santiago.

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Suzanne Stephens, a former deputy editor of Architectural Record, has been a writer, editor, and critic in the field of architecture for several decades. She has a Ph.D. in architectural history from Cornell University, and teaches a seminar in the history of architectural criticism in the architecture program of Barnard and Columbia colleges.