The exhibit’s title is misleading; not all of the works are small scale. But none of them is monumental in size or effect. Even the larger projects, like a raised trolley system that links the barrios of Caracas with the city center, have a stealthy physical presence and don’t disrupt the existing landscape. Many of the projects are works in process, smaller elements in larger schemes that will be built up over years. A project in Chile provides deliberately bare bones townhouses for homeowners to improve and expand on their own. An after-school facility in Los Angeles is built from separate, smaller buildings that evolve into a larger campus. These projects are a lot like the new pedestrian plazas that are popping up at major intersections all around New York City, small-scale interventions that appear without much fanfare but can, together, powerfully improve the environment.
     The projects in “Small Scale, Big Change” address such pressing social needs that many, perhaps lacking resources and time, are executed without refined proportions and finishing. But some, like a mud brick school in Africa, are expressed in reduced forms that have a deep, rough beauty. One project in Pairs, which rehabilitates existing housing towers by wrapping their severe concrete facades with glass skins and garden balconies, has a chic, futuristic spirit. The challenge for architects everywhere is to tackle the social and infrastructure problems around them with a similar kind of enthusiasm and vision.

Small Scale, Big Change