Sunday, 17 January 2016

2016 Pritzker Prize Winner - Alejandro Aravena

Past winners of the Pritzker Prize include: Shigeru Ban, Toyo Ito, Eduardo Souto de Moura and Peter Zumthor to name but a few. This year’s winner has been named as Alejandro Aravena, a Chilean Architect with an aim to improve urban environments and to tackle the global housing crisis. The Pritzker Prize jury praised Aravena for serving the greater social and humanitarian needs of communities. 


Enabling a community to cope better with environmental disasters by improving the 
infrastructure. Post-tsunami disaster, sustainable reconstruction plan of Constitucion. 
Photography by Felipe Diaz, source: Dezeen

Alejandro Aravena is most famously known for co-founding ‘Elemental’, an architecture group with the aim of eradicating poverty, slums and engaging with communities early on in the design process. Below is a short video by Cristobel Palma showing the atmospheric quality of a park designed by Elemental. The park covers four acres of land and sits upon a hillside in Santiago, source: Dezeen website. 


As an aspiring Architect I am pleased to see professionals adapting to face environmental, social and economic issues. These problems are being confronted and the solutions are further enriching schemes of regeneration and development.  


Quinta Monroy Housing, Iquique, 2004
Photography by Cristobel Palma, source: Dezeen


Quinta Monroy Housing, Iquique, 2004
Photography by Cristobel Palma, source: Dezeen 

Sources: Dezeen, ArchDaily and Architecture Magazine