Built in the late eighteenth century, at first sight the house gave the impression of not being useful at all. It had only one-floor plan, the brick floor was broken, the eighty square meters were dark and cold, and the wood roof structure was rotten. Only the earth walls seemed able to be refurbish, which at first glance they did not look so bad at all.
A weekend house, located in one of the hills that create a border around the town of Yaruquí, which is noticeably developed by the new airport of Quito.
The hillside terrain with a regular slope offers impressive views towards the Tababela Valley, with the City of Quito as a backdrop.
The lot is large, which allowed the dispersion of the program and enabled us to design a a single leveled building, thus reducing costs. The project has a bar as axis and a satellite; the 21 meter long bar distributes the program in a linear way, so that all spaces open onto a large porch facing the view and merging the interior with the exterior. At the same time, the horizontally placed bars provide a better adaption to natural topography of the location. The satellite contains the covered parking lots and a large warehouse.
A challenge for any designer is to face an environment in which the landscape is preponderant, in which no intervention will go unnoticed, for critical eyes, will condemn the authors to heaven or hell. There is no doubt that the responsible architectonic task in the equinoctial Andes requires an acute knowledge of the territory but, above all, the neat continuity of correct decisions is necessary.
The objective of the project was to create an exemplary modern house, with four rooms, in a site without a significant topography near the Paute River. The house is established in a U shape land, closing in its lateral arms the social area with the intention of leading the views toward the Andean Mountains, which disappear to the west, creating interesting atmospheres inside the home because of the color shades that are presented by the sunset.
Article source: Estudio A0 & Ana Maria Durán Calisto
To design a house for someone is to build a portrait: the portrait of one or more human beings in their relationship with others and their surroundings. Casa Ortega was designed for a devout son. The commission was clear: a home with two pavilions, one for Raúl and his latent family, another one for his parents. Two houses in one: independent and interdependent. Two open links that string together in a horizontal 8, symbol of the infinite, of eternal return. One way to unravel bonds without piercing them is to offer each lace a space for autonomy. The social spaces of the house (kitchen, dining room and main living room) are the place for sharing and bonding. The private spaces (bedrooms, independent living rooms and bathrooms) provide the place for intimacy. The house design resulted, therefore, from the assembly of two pieces of equal size but different scale: a C which would scoop a garden for Raúl and his family, and an inverted C which would scoop another garden for his parents. The first one would funnel the afternoon sun and would be oriented towards the cordillera that provides the skyline in the horizon; the second one would receive the morning sun and would fold towards the interior. The double nature of the house decanted in a larger footprint for the private area, located in the upper floor. The difference between ground and upper floor was mediated by two inclined planes which provided the perfect opportunity to lodge an escalated library for Raúl, and a cascading inner garden for his mother.
A project that started with uncertainties instead of the usual requirements for permanent living spaces, demanded we shifted the way we approached architecture.
The project as it is now, is a house; it became a house in the process, with its actual configuration decided during construction, its final purpose and use still undecided, its duration as a house uncertain.
We approached the design for this building from a position that questions the solutions currently being produced in Quito in response to the necessity of densifying the city with mid rise construction.
Can we as architects provide economically attractive solutions for the real state market while meeting the new standards set by the City Government for responsible and efficient construction? But most importantly how do we reconcile market interest that focus on the individual, hermetic apartment isolated as much as possible from the discomforts and complications of public urban living, with the urgent necessity for architecture to be the tool for place making in a disjointed, hard-edged city?
Located in Zámbiza, a rural parish located north-east of the city of Quito, the work is implanted on a rectangular terrain of 11m wide by 42m long, which, the tectonic character of the house, Stresses the relationship with the landscape and the place.
It is a 14 story, 15,000 m2 mixed use building: commercial on the lower floor, offices for the next four floors and residential units on the next nine floors.
The building is located at an important intersection within the city where urban elements converge, such as a new metro stop, an important government building, a commercial shopping center and the most emblematic park of the city. Being the first new construction in this zone and highly visible, the building attempts to combine the many existing and new diverse elements through movements that bring new shadow lines reflections and points of view.
odD House 1.0, located in the sector of Tumbaco in Quito, Ecuador was conceived as a therapeutic experiment and change of lifestyle for an elderly couple and their family after living in a rustic style home for over 30+ years. Facing very specific demands from the client, the architects strategized on a methodology for the design and final product by studying Neuroscience as well as the client´s lifestyle. This made the initial solution towards solving the design of the house easier; it made a clear diagram, and gave a design direction towards the client`s main needs. It also raised questions about overall form and language.
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