There is only a small handful of architects practicing today whose work can at once be described as lavish and another as altruistic - Michael Maltzan, Shigeru Ban and Kengo Kuma are a few of the names that come to mind.
But perhaps it is the name of Alejandro Aravena, the Pritzker-prize winning architect behind the Chilean firm ELEMENTAL, that should come before others. The firm's work is always photogenic (the vacation home featured above being among their most exemplary), but one gets the strong sense that this isn't the main priority each time they take on a new project. Rather, as Aravena said in an interview, the firm's goal is to contribute to "a fair built environment where the common good can be guaranteed and balanced with individual gains."
ELEMENTAL, the monograph recently published by Lars Müller, highlights the delicate balance between luxury and benevolence the firm has achieved. Indirectly subscribing to the theorist Kenneth Frampton's definition of a 'critical regionalism' - an approach towards architectural design that values context and resourcefulness - one can see ELEMENTAL's work charting new territories in how an architecture firm can work against some of the greatest issues facing the built environment in the 21st century.
This is evident by either studying many of the firm's built projects (such as Villa Verde, the incremental housing project in Chile the firm designed for people displayed by the 2010 earthquake, shown above) or even upon first opening their website, which yields a free zip file of open source plans for low-cost yet upgradable housing.
18 Comments
Yet they got away with unpaid interns.
brought to you by unpaid interns.
...errrr Michael Maltzan pays his interns!! And decently for that matter!! This guy does not!! How the hell does he get all this attention? He trash talked other architects that build in Qatar like Zaha (oh but not OMA bc you know Rem is a man) when he is doing a museum there himself!!
when you don't pay your interns, it's no surprise you can only build "half a house" -- and when you BS this much, it's no wonder why the New York Times comes knocking
I literally designed that exact same thing he’s sitting in when I was an undergrad. He looks like a prick.
You should have sold it to a client. Could've been you sitting by the ocean looking like a prick.
Yeah, but my hair could never look that good..(
Maltzan pays 500 a week for interns , for 40 hrs a week that equates to around 12.50 per hr , and that’s for recent grads too , so is that decent pay ? I could work at McDonald’s for the same and not have to go to grad school for 3 years and incur lots of debt.
And I bet interns don’t even work 40 hrs per week.
hate to break it to you but I got more as an intern
I wonder what interns get at ELEMENTAl...prolly much less
Better than zero.
he stopped the not paying interns thing after the Ishigami ker-spluffle
you could work at mcdonalds for the same wage as you get being an intern. That is the level of the position.
all that aside, there was hypocrisy in the way his practice was run and that is sad, for someone who is otherwise representing an important part of what architecture cold aspire to.
Where does he critique zaha for working in qatar but give rem a pass?
@archinet
Why would it be hard to break it to me, I wouldn’t care if you got a dollar or 500 dollars more , bc that is a standard low ball offer anyways to anyone. If your defending them because you already have worked for them then that is biased. I just feel bad for the suckers that do take those low offers because they are only devaluing their institutions they are representing and the profession at large.
Honestly compared to the internships my friends got offered in other offices MMA paid more- way more. Even compared to offices in L.A. Furthermore compared to my other internships I had (five before the one at MMA), the pay and the experience was far better. Yes I worked hard but never more then 10 hours a day. Also I thought minimum wage in California is 11 dollars an hour? Personally 500 bucks a week as an internship in L.A. is not that terrible. If you really want more money I guess you can go to SOM or somewhere corporate. Still I would be interested to find out what Elemental pays their interns.
"Personally 500 bucks a week as an internship in L.A. is not that terrible"
I mean, it's one banana, Michael... What could it cost? Ten dollars?
I don´t recall a banana costing ten bucks in L.A. I had a studio apartment close to the office that cost me 900 bucks a month. It was fine for me for a summer stint.
+++ for the AD reference.
Here’s a candy bar. No, I’m withholding it. Look at me, ‘getting off.’
maybe maltzan will let you stay at the star apts with those pay rates
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