As an architect, Alejandro Aravena traffics in a sort of obviousness that only becomes apparent in hindsight. The Chilean’s best works gradually reveal themselves to be fundamentally explainable. This, one might argue, is a more compelling magic trick than the eternal mystery of how some of his colleagues’ wild creations remain standing; Aravena is Penn and Teller to the starchitect’s Houdini. Villa Verde in Constitución, Chile, is instructive in this regard. Completed by Aravena’s firm, Elemental, in 2013, the 484-unit housing development is composed of repeating peaked-roof forms. Beneath one side of each slope sits the interior of the home, walled…