¨El Alambique¨ house, located in the Puembo region at the outskirts of Quito, between the Chiche and Guambí rivers has been located at a sloped site, overlooking a ravine. One of the design challenges was to sort out a home with a 70% first floor architectural program under the sloped topographic conditions, while allowing the internal garden to be mostly flat and fluidly connected to the inner and outdoor activities.
The Visores houses are located between two mountain ranges in the Cumbayá valley, they find their place in the world based on their orientation. The perception is complete, when what we see from the windows belongs to the house as well. Hence the importance of projecting it from the point of view of those who are going to visit it.
A house raised on one floor, on a corner lot of 700m2. The mandatory withdrawals occupy a large part of the land, that’s why it was decided to be solve it with an L-shaped configuration, that with the same construction, forms an enclosure towards the street and contains the social area and a private patio to which the House opens for the enjoyment of outdoor spaces. The Urbanization where the project is located, prohibits front enclosures, which harmonizes the coexistence between neighbors, but it limits the privacy of the ground floor spaces, so these perimeter facades show hermeticism and introspection towards the interior.
The intervention was carried out in a modern apartment of the 70s, located right in the Historical Center of Quito. More than two decades ago the Historical Center has been transformed regarding habitation and use of space, being now immersed in a process of residential desertification. As a result, several properties built for housing are now becoming warehouses and commercial shops of all kind. Over the years the commercial vocation of this area has strongly risen to the detriment of a coexistence with housing for Quito’s population.
A family house for three persons, located in a private urbanization in the Valley of Cumbaya in Quito, where two-floor single family homes predominate.
The plot is located on the edge of the slope and the valley, so it was sought to place the house at the highest level, to obtain the best views. The project is a perpendicular bar to the street, which feeds on the best orientation and allows a large garden whose perception expands with the street and at the same time gives green to the public space.
The concept of the project originates due to the physical parameters of the terrain – steep slope due to its location in the Cordillera de los Andes – and the client requirements of 4 single-family homes of 300 m2. An analysis is made both in section and plan of the plot where a collective project is conceived, interpreted by a series of volumes introduced in the ground with different heights and depths that generate terraced green areas at different levels, each one of the interior spaces has views of the forest to the front and access to the different terraces that are conjugated with the natural environment of the site.
Photography: Bicubik – Sebastián Crespo – Andres Fernández
Client: Figueroa Family
Partners in Charge: Pablo Castro Guijarro – Roberto Morales Guijarro
Design Team: Juan Ruiz, Héctor Barreto, Vladimir Tapia, Daniel Molina, Maricela Galán, Eduardo Obach, Luis Antonio Espinoza, José López, Adriana Guerrero, Paolo Caicedo, Alejandro Viteri.
Located in tower #4 of the Centro Corporativo Ekopark, this place is conditioned by various facts. Firstly, this is the only tower of the complex that has a LEED certification, which generates some building, energetic, and equipment requirements. Secondly, the place is a space of 290m2, of which, the 70% is basically part of the underground level, that why there are low lighting and natural ventilation.
The order was to implement a dining room for mainly supplying to the tower but with free access to the general public. It was calculated a daily circulation from 400 to 600 people. We sought an optimum use of the space, exploitation of the entire area, efficient flows, and generate a space that hosts after-office activities.
The average age of users is 35 years old, and they are mostly operations executives of large business; however, the space has to contemplate a diversity of ages and business positions. Additionally, near this tower, it is located one of the campuses of Universidad de las Américas, which also generated a target group that could be potential space users.
A home destined to become quickly a definitive home because the owners were looking for a house that would allow them to leave the rental department soon and thus stop paying endless fees. The challenge was to design the project in a month and to build the house of 65m2 in two months. A house which had to be an affordable one, for this purpose blunt design strategies were defined: to create a structural constructive system that requires little time of execution and covers a large area. Initially the owners looked for a house of containers, nevertheless they required of ample spaces, also had to cover them and modify them reason why the sense of its reuse was lost. For that reason, a system of corrugated rod trusses that allows to contain spaces, was defined concretely and virtually, besides the importance of structuring with our own measures for different uses. The foundation was built quickly with the leftovers from the rods and they were made as piles. The modulation of the house is a function of the material (the trusses are 7.2 meters long), so it is distributed every 1.20 m x 2.40 m in height to receive industrial plates and reduce execution costs. However, in such a fast process we leave space for the spontaneous and the definition in the work in progress.
“Poor is not who owns little, but who needs a lot” Mujica.
Design and construction of a 12 sq.m dwelling, located on the rooftop of an existent building at the popular neighbourhood San Juan in Quito-Ecuador.
Casa parásito (Parasitic house) is a minimal design object, focused in solving the basic habitation necessities for a person or young couple: It includes: bathroom, kitchen, bed, storage space and To-be space ( eating, working and socializing), which secure all the facilities of a dwelling in a reduced area.
Every so often we meet a client who is faced with the decision to buy a new property that might be out of his budget or buy something already built and recondition it.
Our advice always stands out the second option. We believe that is better to take advantage of an existing building and with doing so strengthen the city as it, the challenge is visualize the possibilities.
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