The Siamese Tower project was completed in 2005 and is one of the many projects Aravena and the Elemental firm completed for the Universidad Catolica de Chile at the San Joaquin Campus. As the name implies, the building is comprised of two conjoining buildings made up of offices and classrooms.

The university has originally asked the firm to design a glass tower. Due to Santiago’s harsh climate, glass is an inappropriate building material because it generates green house affect, although glass is a good material for resisting rain, pollution, and aging. This design adheres to the original request of the glass building for what it is good for on the outside, but incorporates an entirely different building within it with a building material that will reap benefits of efficient energy performance.

This park was built in Santiago in 2012 with the design being a solution to a problem the architects of Elemental detected in Chile. While Chile has had major economic growth over the last decade, the urban standards had not increased proportionally.

While most cities utilize their geographical features such as rivers and hills as recreational areas, Santiago has already used the river that runs through the city and replaced it as a highway. Due to the lack of natural features and growing urbanization, the people of Santiago did not have a single place to go for a long walk. The only geographical feature left was an old agricultural canal known as the San Cristobal Hill, which Elemental deemed appropriate for their plans for a continuous path that could be transformed into a pedestrian promenade.

Aravena and the Elemental firm brought a much-needed spot of green to Santiago with the four-hectare Children’s Bicentennial Park, an interactive landscape built on the hillside. The park includes sculptures, jungle gyms, and long walking paths. The park was built as part of a program to celebrate Chile’s bicentennial.

This building’s design was challenging due to the client’s requests. The firm had to design a building that could accommodate 300 beds, social areas, and certain services for the entire St. Edward’s University Campus in Austin, Texas. The challenging issue was the size of the lot they needed to fit the building on, which was very narrow. To achieve this, the firm did three things: created a plinth using the more public facilities to activate the ground floor, carved the volume’s core to create the area for the centrally-located social areas, and articulated the perimeter of the building as much as possible.

They also kept a focus on guaranteeing views for the students and establishing natural light for each room. The set up and placement of the building enabled the design to fit all of requirements of the residential hall on the small lot allotted. Also, living in Oklahoma, we know that Texas summers are hot and dry. To ensure that the building would be able to withstand the tough environment, the designers opted for a sequence of heavy and rough materials for the exterior.

Elemental is prominently known for its specialization in projects that work with poor or disaster-ravaged communities. On February 27, 2010, Chile was ravaged by an 8.8 earthquake and tsunami. Aravena created a master plan, Post-tsunami Sustainable Reconstruction Plan (PRES), to rebuild the city of Constitución. He and his team at Elemental completed the plan in 100 days, which includes improved access to public space and was created with the help of the public. The master plan is currently still in progress and has provided many other key public building in the town. One of my favorite aspects of the Post-tsunami Sustainable Reconstruction Plan is a series of coastal lookout points along the promenade to encourage tourism.

The project consists of a series of coastal lookout points along the way from Maule River’s mouth (downtown) to Maguellines Port, in order to reinforce and highlight the natural heritage embodied by the huge rocks of this landscape. The lookout points not only exemplify beauty and reconstruction, but also serve as remembrance for the massive losses of the 2010 tsunami.

A private client asked Alejandro Araveno and the ELEMENTAL team to design a house that could withstand the extreme weather and climate of the most southern part of Chile. When discussing the design of the home, the architects referred to the home as “more than a design”. The home was considered to be the “solution of an equation that included every possible aspect that one could consider to be included”.

The home’s location is not only part of an active volcano site, but also has extreme weather conditions of heat, rainfall, and wind. Due to this, the design took as little risk as possible, from the roof of the house to the base. Not only was the home designed to avoid strong winds, but also to exploit the views. The home was built on a base to resist the place and on top of it, a geometry that reacted to views and orientation. Additionally, to preserve the place of the remote landscape, the stones and woods used to build the home came from the clearance of the area. The darkness of the home is also a way to restitute the original density of the place.

Recently awarded “Design of the Year” by London’s Design Museum, ELEMENTAL’s UC Innovation Center is a striking sculptural triumph in Santiago, Chile. Santiago’s climate requires a change to the conventional approach to architectural design. The city has been populated with glass towers to meet the contemporary look desired by clients, but the hot desert climate has caused serious greenhouse effect in the interiors of these buildings. While still needing to meet the contemporary design expectation of the client, ELEMENTAL found ways to avoid this climatic issue. The architects substituted the contemporary typical glass skin, for a thermal mass on the perimeter that avoids undesired heat gains.

Aravena, the founder of ELEMENTAL and lead architect, instead created the building from concrete and carved site-specific openings to help prevent overheating, reduce energy consumption, and avoid the greenhouse effect common to all-glass buildings. Another challenge of innovative space design is creating a building that can stand the test of time. In an effort to fight obsolescence the building was designed as if it was an infrastructure more than architecture to allow for continuous change and renewal. From a stylistic point of view, the design used strict geometry and strong monolithic materiality replacing trendiness by timelessness.

1 Hotel Central Park is the definition of serenity in the crowd and chaos of New York City. Centrally located in the middle of Manhattan, the hotel is a natural refuge from the city that never sleeps. I have never seen anything like this hotel. It honestly takes “going green” to a whole new level. 1 Hotel Central Park is the brainchild of Barry Sternlicht, who set out to create a luxury retreat that celebrates and protects nature. Every aspect of the hotel is created in an eco-friendly way. It was so neat to see the little whimsical design elements that each served a purpose in efforts to protect the environment. Little things such as little chalkboards rather than notepads on the nightstands and stones that were engraved with “now” or “not now” taking place of the usual do not disturb signs made such a difference in the level of tranquility you felt during your stay. 1 Hotel Central Park is honestly, for lack of better terms, just one of the most stylish hotels I have ever stayed in. The design successfully proves that style and sustainability can coexist. With over 24,000 plants inside the hotel, and a lot more ivy on the three-story living walls on the exterior, the hotel feels alive in a way that very few other eco-friendly hotels do. Many of the building materials are organic. The front doors are composed of 16,000 twigs.

Floors and walls are made from reclaimed wood, and art pieces in the lobby and rooms are created by driftwood and hanging plants that provide a spa-like feel to the place. The rooms were so creatively designed and had open concepts and windows throughout that added a sense of flow to your stay.

One of my favorite design aspects from the entire hotel is the piece of living art that reads “No thing is ever really lost”, which I of course instagrammed. The hotel’s design is truly one-of-a-kind and provides the most serene and relaxing stay you can find in Manhattan.

  Another one of my favorite places is Savannah, Georgia. I love everything about the historical architecture throughout the town. Savannah draws tourists for many things, but one in particular that I’m very fond of is Leopold’s Ice Cream Parlor in Downtown SAV. The retro ice cream parlor has been around for nearly a century, first opening in 1919. They are famous for their unchanged homemade ice cream that has been ranked as top 5 recipes in the world (I can vouch for them on that title). Founded by the three Leopold brothers from Greece, they opened their first location on the corner of Gwinnett and Habersham streets in Savannah, where two streetcar lines intersected.

They served for generations at this original location from 1919 until 2004, when Peter Leopold’s youngest son, Stratton and his wife opened the new downtown location on Broughton Street.

The ice cream shop draws many tourists and has been featured on the Travel Channel and Food Network several times. The new location takes you back in time with the retro parlor style complete with soda fountains and employees old-time uniforms. Stratton Leopold and his wife incorporated many fixtures from the original store, including the black marble soda fountain, to preserve the old-fashioned look for the parlor. Customers also experience a little piece of Hollywood in Savannah as you peruse Stratton Leopold’s collection of film posters and props from films he has worked on over his 45 plus years in the movie industry!

 I will always remember my first trip to Walt Disney World when I was a little girl and seeing Cinderella’s Castle for the first time. I was in absolute awe. To this day, I still turn into that little girl when I go to Disney world. The extravagant, over the top royal castle is at the heart of the Magic Kingdom portion of the park. Cinderella’s Castle is essentially the central icon of Disney and symbolizes all things magical. The castle resides at the end of Main Street, U.S.A. and provides a wonderful backdrop for photos and fireworks at the park. Boasting soaring spires, ornate turrets and regal royal-blue rooftops, the 189-foot castle invokes both the magic and mystery of real-world castles—such as Fontainebleau and Versailles—and fictional palaces like the one seen in Disney’s animated classic Cinderella. Complete with enchanting landscaping including a moat and wishing well, the castle provides a fairytale experience for visitors of all ages.

Since I was 7 years old, my grandparents have gathered the whole family together for a week at their house at Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. When we first visited, they had a timeshare for a condo with some of their friends. Finally, in 2005, they decided to move up to a house that can sleep 22 people and we’ve been spending summers there ever since. The small beach town has been a big part of my life for nearly fifteen years and the memories made there make it so much more. The house just makes you feel so at home and happy with the comforting color scheme and beachy decor. The open style of the home provides a very welcoming feel to the home. I have always associated this house with happy memories and times of no worries. The way the home is designed and styled allows my large family to all stay under one roof and still feel comfortable and relaxed.