When Chile was faced with a housing crisis after an earthquake hit that killed 500 people and destroyed 80% of the city’s buildings, Alejandro Aravena decided to think outside the box. He had limited funding, and he didn’t want to leave people with small, subpar housing. So, he built half houses. These houses are just that, they are split down the middle, with one side ready to be moved into and the other side open. Families can design the other half however they want, over as much time as they need. With the floors, foundation, roof, and walls already built, families can develop better housing than they would have access to if they started from scratch. Alejandro Aravena’s firm, Elemental, even held workshops and gave out manuals to give families ideas on how to develop the other side of the house with common materials. In my team presentation, one of the points I discussed as part of the solutions to high-density development is to develop something that can be continuously reinvented and renovated, and I do believe this does just that because it is incremental housing that spreads the major costs of building a house out over multiple jobs. This design gives families a way to obtain affordable housing that they can make all their own. Alejandro Aravena won the Pritzker Prize in 2016 for his unique take on addressing housing deficits.

www.archdaily.com/797779/half-a-house-builds-a-whole-community-elementals-controversial-social-housing