Parameters
The project was developed in an urban residential área in the city of Quito. The program required eleven exclusive apartments in a six story building plus two aditional underground parking levels. The site has three street fronts and a small park facing the more important of these fronts. The topography of the site has an important slope, and being situated in one of the highest residential áreas in the city, it is gifted with privileged views.
The building and its context
The importance of the building´s context and surroundings is first undestood by recognizing its two street corners and fronts as importan urban elements. An exposed concrete envelope surrounds the dúplex apartments on the northern corner side, topping the building with an open pórtico and a roof terrace. This concrete element not only gives slenderness to the volume, but also serves as a semi open space for a comunal recreative area for its users. Lastly, the topography of the site is acknowledged by placing the ground level at the midpoint of the slope, and creating an elevated garden that sits on top of the existing stone wall on the site.
Functional and compositional solution
Parting from the exclusive nature of the apartments that the developer seeked, the architectural solution proposes that each apartment be diiferent from the next.
Therefore, the program is resolved in section, being this the principal design tool of the building. In a total of eleven apartments, being most of these a dúplex, nine of them are different, turning the building into a spatial puzzle in which the pieces overlap both vertically and horizontally, creating spatial and lighting richness through voids and openings that can be appreciated and understood through them.
The site is long and narrow towards the city and main views. The plan solution although unorthodox, was to split the site in two, along the longitudinal front, therefore allowing the best lighting and views not only one but two apartments being placed at the front. This stretched solution allows the apartments to feel more like elevated houses.
The facades of the building respond to the context as well as the interiors. The two short facades are open, permeable glass fronts which reveal the double height living areas of the apartments. The long street side is a much more closed and irregular facade where the windows seem to be placed randomly, and thus reinforcing the puzzle happening inside.
Tectonics
The tectonics of the building are treated and worked as an integral part of the architecture. The surrounding context is characterized by its strong topography and its stone retaining walls. An important effort was made to maintain the existing stone wall on the front of the lot, which is a hand crafted work too dificult to replicate nowdays. The exposed concrete plays an important role of the architectural volume, framing and defining both the exterior and interior of the spaces. The abstraction of the long white stucco exterior walls gain strength with the random composition of the prefab concrete window frames.
Finally, the use of glass and steel elements give a certain permeability and lightness to the main volume which contrasts with the bold monolithic stone base which it sits on.
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