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From Existing to Inhabited | Renovation of MAPAA's E_RC building
The E_RC project, designed by the MAPAA firm, consists of the renovation of a 600 m² building located in the Providencia district of Santiago, Chile. The property had been abandoned for more than thirty years, turning it into a disused structure in the heart of the city. The project posed an architectural and urban challenge: how to recover an obsolete volume and transform it into a contemporary residential building.

Arq. Alejandra Polanía
4 days ago4 min read


How did a half-built house change the lives of 100 families? | Quinta Monroy Complex by ELEMENTAL
Located in Iquique, Chile, and developed in 2004, the Quinta Monroy project sought to relocate 100 families who had lived for decades in precarious conditions to the same site. Under the Chilean government's Dynamic Debt-Free Social Housing program, each family received a subsidy of USD 7,500 to build their home. Faced with this budgetary constraint, the Elemental team, led by Alejandro Aravena, proposed an innovative approach.

Arq. Alejandra Polanía
Oct 76 min read


The Butantã House | Between Concrete and Community: Domestic Architecture in the Work of Mendes da Rocha
The Butantã House, designed by Paulo Mendes da Rocha in 1964, embodies a synthesis between concrete as a material and a social conception of domestic space. Framed within the Brazilian brutalist movement—particularly in its São Paulo iteration—this work becomes an architectural manifesto where the apparent structure, functionality, and openness to the environment dialogue with ideas of collectivity.

Arq. Alejandra Polanía
Aug 256 min read


CASA TULUM 21 | Mimicry in Housing: The Influence of Nature on Architecture
Casa Tulum 21's relationship with the natural environment is based on its very integration with the site. This is a common element we see in the ecological setting of Yucatán, an architecture characterized by its connection to vegetation, sustainability, and a minimalist style

Arq. Alejandra Polanía
May 287 min read
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