Articles Tagged with ''Pritzker Prize''

The first Indian architect to win the accolade, Doshi’s 70-year career has been characterized by dignified designs that respect the people they serve and the contexts in which they exist.

In architecture, it’s always awards season.

This year’s Pritzker Architecture Prize winner, the Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena, is known for his socially-minded design. Since establishing his Santiago firm ELEMENTAL in 2001, Aravena has designed some 2,500 units of housing.

The announcement of the 2016 Pritzker Prize winner last month came as something of a shock. Rather than select a precertified star, the jury picked Alejandro Aravena, best known for building smart, extremely low-cost social housing in his native Chile.

When Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena speaks about designing buildings, he invokes the language of governments and institutes: “investing in brains over bricks”; turning “forces into forms.” But unlike the abstract ideas that may emerge from a policy institute, Aravena, with his Santiago-based firm ELEMENTAL, is keen on designing solutions that not solely aid, but empower society’s neediest.