In its architectural practice, Elemental responds to an awareness of the intervention context, the socio-cultural and economic dimension, and the recognition of the necessities and eventual deficiencies present. Examining the elementary way this Chilean collective approaches subjects is the focus of this issue. Developing works of very different scales, from individual dwellings to intervention studies at the urban scale, or even provincial planning, founder and Pritzker Prize winner Alejandro Aravena and his team clearly have their origins in South American architecture, yet also show an increasingly socially-engaged and global dimension: simplicity, perpetuality, efficiency, and utility.

In its architectural practice, Elemental responds to an awareness of the intervention context, the socio-cultural and economic dimension, and the recognition of the necessities and eventual deficiencies present. Examining the elementary way this Chilean collective approaches subjects is the focus of this issue. Developing works of very different scales, from individual dwellings to intervention studies at the urban scale, or even provincial planning, founder and Pritzker Prize winner Alejandro Aravena and his team clearly have their origins in South American architecture, yet also show an increasingly socially-engaged and global dimension: simplicity, perpetuality, efficiency, and utility.