Eran Chen on the strength of the voids in architecture

In this episode, Archello speaks with Eran Chen, founder and executive director of ODA Architecture, the New York-based architecture practice known for challenging conventional models of housing, density, and urban development. Founded in 2007, ODA has grown to around 120 people, with its main office in Tribeca and projects extending from New York to cities around the world. Chen’s work is driven by a recurring question: how can architecture respond to ways of living that are changing faster than the cities around them? Rather than approaching buildings primarily as objects, he describes ODA’s work through experience, density, and the spaces that architecture leaves open. “Instead of looking at the built, we're looking at the voids between the built,” he says.Listen as Chen reflects on ODA’s experiments with New York zoning, the relationship between density and public space, and projects including POST Rotterdam, Denizen, 420 Kent, and Ola Palermo. Across them, he returns to an idea he calls “porosity”: shaping the voids within increasingly dense cities as spaces for interaction, belonging, and collective life.