Friday night on a panel about housing for the homeless two architects, Michael Maltzan and Jonathan Kirschenfeld, presented two very different approaches.

Jonathan Kirschenfeld, who works in New York, approaches city agencies and non profits to find suitable plots of land and secure funds to develop them.  The shelters he’s completed are simply, pragmatically conceived and finished in ordinary materials.  They are like the finest, most intelligent diagrams.  It’s as if he’s saying, This is all it takes to make housing.

Michael Maltzan, who works in Los Angeles, treats the city agencies and non profits he works with like any other clients, and the housing he builds for the homeless like any other housing.  The shelters that he’s completed have the same volumetric complexity and cinematic effects that his high-end houses do.  And why not?