While others look at buildings as their creative visions made real, the charming and bookish architect Carlos Arnaiz – winner of two consecutive Progressive Architecture awards in 2008 and 2009 and the
AIANY building merit award in 2008 – looks at the landscape with a spatial view in mind.
Talking like an engrossed history teacher and looking more like an inspiring professor of Law
rather than your typical architect, 35-year-old Filipino-Colombian architect Carlos Arnaiz of
the Brooklyn-based architectural firm CAZA admits he came into architecture through a very
unusual route. While most architects he knew were artists and had explored their creative side
at a very early age, he on the other hand, was a Philosophy major who hadn’t even the slightest
skill at doodling.
“There’s a branch in philosophy that I got interested in (while in Williams College) called geography. It’s not like the geography we know where you have to know the capital of Afghanistan,” says this self-proclaimed geek. “The branch of philosophy (that I studied) is a discipline that emphasizes
space and spatiality as a way of finding solutions to complex problems.” Carlos likens the discipline to the centuries-old Chinese tradition of feng shui – but without the kooky mysticism. “There’s a whole Chinese tradition of thinking about the importance of space — the economics of space, how we live in space, how we hang things, whether we paint walls this way. (If you may notice) just the organization of your living room space has this emotional, mental and psychological impact on how you live. The fact that there’s such a long tradition is a testament to how space can impact us on a
personal human level. When you zoom out to the macro level, the way you organize and use space
on a wider plane will also have a big impact on the people.”
Though he found geography and philosophy intellectually satisfying (he graduated magna cum laude), he felt frustrated that all his ideas had no real tangibility. ”I was operating on theoretical level. I was hungry for a tool, an instrument to make my ideas real in the world. And that’s how I stumbled into architecture. Architecture has an intellectual side to it, but it also has a very practical side to it. It has givens like materials, paint, wood, concrete, steel and glass.”
Excited by his newfound calling and direction, Carlos applied for a master’s degree at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design where he met the Dean of the College of Design, Peter Rowe. Together, they collaborated on a number of consulting projects for the city of Barcelona and the Emilia-Romagna Region in Italy. There they were hired by both regions’ respective governments to develop a regional master plan to solve the city’s problems. In 2008, Carlos received the Wheelwright Prize from Harvard University for his work on the Urbanism of the Modern University in four Latin American cities: Mexico, Caracas, Bogotá and Sao Paolo.
After a short stint with several other architects and architecture firms like Office DA, Ruf, Field Operations and Stan Allen Architect in New York, Carlos established his own firm CAZA and has since been traveling the world, working on projects in the Philippines, Colombia, Costa Rica and Taiwan. He recently finished building a chapel, his gift to the Chosen Children Village (a foundation in Silang, Cavite) for physically and mentally challenged children.
“It’s a wonderful story,” shares Carlos. “In 1989, a couple – a Filipina (Maria Angeles ‘Lita’ Peypoch Fullerton) and her American husband – decided to adopt a child with a disability. They instantly fell in love with the child and so they adopted another one, and then another, and then the next thing
they knew they had 200 kids and had to get the house next door. It’s a whole community called the Chosen Children Village and we designed a very simple chapel for their growing family,” Carlos
beams proudly as he himself is a very proud father of two little boys – Lucas (three) and Tomas (six months) with wife Elizabeth Taylor (no relation to the iconic diva).
The chapel, built from humble concrete, is a breathtaking sight with ceilings that rise to a heavenly height. Playing with verticality and sunlight, Carlos used the concrete to shape columns and panels
that allowed natural ventilation and different lights to illumine the sacred space. “There’s skylight up above. There’s light coming through these little panels here. So when you’re inside, you’ll see
that there’s a real play of shadows and a filtering effect of light from all angles — diffuse light, accent light and direct light,” Carlos beams as he animatedly paints a picture of his chapel with his hands.
He would later win a Merit Award from the American Institute of Architects and Faith & Form Award for this particular project. One of his other most prized works was the widely acclaimed
High Line project in New York, which he worked on as designer and senior associate. And like the Chosen Children Village, he loved the project because it celebrated a great history.
In the 1920s, elevated steel railroad tracks were built in Manhattan to transport cargo from the northern tip of the New York borough to its southern tip. Thereafter, in the early 1960s the tracks were abandoned and left to rust, causing people to insist that it be torn down by the city because it was an eyesore. However, the clamor to save the community marker, headed by locals and celebrities like Meryl Streep and Robert de Niro who lived in the Tribeca area, led to the idea of rehabilitating the ruins… and thus the High Line design competition was born.
In 2002, Carlos, with a team of five, bested 30 other firms with their thoughtful design. “Basically, what it is is a park. It sounds simple but it’s spectacular when you go up there. You take these stairs and imagine you’re like flying up in the sky almost 30 feet above the street. You can see the water, you can see the mountains, you can see midtown, and you can see the high rises of Manhattan. Here families can have picnics; people sunbathe and watch the sunsets. It’s magnificent.” Not only was Carlos able to do an impressive revamp of the old railroad, he was also able to preserve a piece of the
community that could have been easily lost to history.
Though his style may not be obvious in all of his projects, rest assured that each project is meticulously planned and imprinted with Carlos’ thoughtful touch. “I always say that designing a home for someone is like tailoring a suit. It has to be perfectly made; fit to the shoulders and to the waist; and to the way the person moves. In order to build him a home, you really have to study that person’s life.”
In making a home, accommodating the client’s lifestyle is more important than the architect’s “vision” he says, contrary to the myth presented in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead. “In the novel, one
genius (Howard Roark) supposedly comes up with this concept that solves everything. The fact of the matter is, it’s not true. I say the myth is damaging because I think a lot of young architects study architecture with that dream and they kind of get disillusioned when they realize that architecture is
complicated. It involves a lot of negotiations. Not one idea ever solves everything and we should be humble enough to accept that good ideas can come from anyone on the team.
“And I think as creative people, we are constantly cannibalizing ideas from others. I think it’s impossible to be completely original. You’re always borrowing and quoting, acting and reacting whether you like something or not; even not liking something forces you to take a position.” Though Carlos may not believe in originality, he however believes in true collaboration. “I don’t mind having too many cooks. I’m flexible and I encourage feedback. I believe the perfect project would be when
architects, clients and engineers come together.”
Having said that, Carlos belts a hearty laugh, admitting that he doesn’t know how smoothly that
will work out when he’s to build his own dream house. “I think it would be a nightmare! It would
be the ultimate dream and it would be a true collaboration because my wife is also an architect.
But we would never finish. It would be a perpetual project. And I have no idea how it would look like. ”
But even if he did have a blueprint in mind, Carlos for now would not have the time to build it as this busy bee is currently developing a student center for the National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, a house in Costa Rica, a master plan for a coastal resort in the Philippines together with the construction of a prototype house, a cluster of three high-rise housing condominiums in Manila and a new market for vegetable farmers outside Bogota, Colombia. He also manages to squeeze in time to teach a class called “Urban Design Theory” at Pratt Institute.
For Carlos, architecture is not merely adding another building to the already overcrowded landscape. Rather, it is a discipline of design. He studies every aspect of the project, figuring in the sentiments of his clients, studying how to respond to the history of the location and above all, planning how his space will beautifully and seamlessly fit in the whole scheme of the city.
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