Eran Chen

ODA is an office of architecture, interior design and landscape based in New York, founded in 2007 by Eran Chen AIA. Through a range of scales and typologies, ODA seeks to reconcile the conditions of vertical urban living with quality of life. Since its inception in 2007, ODA has quickly emerged as one of the most recognized firms of its generation, promptly establishing a reputation for delivering imaginative and mold-breaking designs. Seeking to reorder architectural priorities by putting people first, ODA challenges conventional perspectives of dwelling that will, over time, influence life in our cities.

As a kid, what did you answer when asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Even as a kid, I wanted to be an architect or designer. I was always making something and dreamed of creating solutions to problems. When I was six years old, I was already drawing perspective views of our living room, and when I was ten, I started designing buildings. That being said, I also considered going into psychology. It’s a fascinating field, and while I didn’t get proper training or a degree for the latter, my work greatly involves social psychology.

Which designer and/or piece of work inspires you? Why?
Renzo Piano is an architect and designer that truly inspires me. He’s said that throughout his career as an architect, he was always fighting gravity through structures that feel light and airy. While you can clearly see that in his work, I am also inspired by his buildings for a different reason. In order to create an illusion of lightness, he promoted porosity, permeability and blurring the line between indoors and out. Porosity in cities, across different scales, whether buildings, city blocks or neighborhoods is the key to intimacy and is the number one thing I am inspired to create.

How would you describe your design philosophy?
Michelangelo once wrote, “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” In other words, he doesn’t create his sculptures, he discovers them inside the stone and gives them existence.

I feel the same about my design and architecture. I give buildings life by exposing their authentic story, clearing the debris and mundane complexity that covers them and giving them existence. My buildings do not follow a style, they follow a story that is written for and by their future users. This design philosophy is encapsulated in our latest monograph, ODA: Office of Design and Architecture, published by Rizzoli earlier this year.

Who are three designers you follow on Instagram?
Sebastian Errazuriz
Mitchell Joachim Terreform 1
Farshad Mehdizadeh

Give us some context about where you live: How long you’ve been there and how does it influence your work?
I live and work in Tribeca, a historically low-rise, industrial New York City neighborhood between Soho and the World Trade Center downtown known for cast iron building façades with timber and brick structures, high ceilings and deep loft spaces. The relatively low-density neighborhood has a unique loft lifestyle that makes it intimate and exclusive, while its industrial feel and location between the bustling Canal Street and the skyscrapers of the Financial District make it very urban and a little rough around the edges. I like that feeling in a city and also in our work.

Which of your projects or products are you most proud? Why?
It’s so difficult to choose a favorite project, but I am extremely proud of the work we’ve done at Paseo Gigena in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where we reimagined a decaying parking structure into a significant mixed-use development, breathing new life into a long-neglected site. Located between the cherished racecourse and El Rosedal de Palermo, Paseo Gigena serves as a new connection point for the city and is home to Class A offices, community-driven retail, and an expansive public park. As we do across our portfolio, we designed the project with porosity in mind to create a vibrant hub for the community that enriches the urban experience and fosters a sense of connection and belonging among the Buenos Aires community.

What is the most pressing issue in the design world today?
In my opinion, the most pressing issue in the design world today is how to make life better in cities. As designers, we’re constantly exploring how to expand and improve the public realm, use design and architecture to fight loneliness, foster community between people, and establish a connection to nature that feels organic.

What’s now? (What are you currently working on: A new project? Experimenting with new materials, techniques, or approaches? Learning about something?)
I’m fascinated by my new expression: “Form Follows Experience.” Human experiences are my new guideline when designing a building’s form. In our highly technological world, we can do almost anything from anywhere through our phones and computers, so functions like “work” are becoming more fluid and much less important to me in determining the form of a building. What’s important is how we experience reality, and at ODA, we design buildings to shape those experiences, whether a housing, hospitality, higher education or cultural project.

What is your favorite movie? And your favorite band or/and song?
Movies: Y tu mamá también by Alfonso Cuarón and Amores perros by Alejandro González Iñárritu
Band: The Police
Song: Vienna by Billy Joel

To learn more about Eran’s work, visit Oda-Architecture.com