The ELEMENTAL studio is headed by artistic director Alejandro Aravena, winner of the Pritzker Prize and director of the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2016. The studio is based in the capital of Chile, Santiago, and is untraditionally composed of people with a variety of skills and abilities. Their analytical approach to architecture and urban planning has led them towards original solutions to social challenges, such as the housing shortage in Santiago's economically disadvantaged neighborhoods. Instead of designing cheap housing, ELEMENTAL builds half houses at the same cost and enables customers to build the other halves themselves.