ESQUILO MORAN

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E S Q U I L O

M O R Á N

A Portfolio of Architectural Works, 1985 – 2012


Contents Introduction Project for a Single-Family House Project for a Single-Family House Project for a Single-Family House Project for a Family Compound at the Beach Balandra K-Grade School Casablanca Condominium Apartments Two Projects for a Single-Family House Project for a Single-Family House "Balandra-Colinas de Los Ceibos" Elementary School Project for a Single-Family Beach House Project for a Gymnasium Project for a Two-Family House Project for a Private High School Single-Family House Project for a Two-Family House Project for a Two-Family House Project for a Condominium Project for a Single-Family House Project for a Prototype Single-Family Beach House Project for a Prototype Single-Family House Project for a Prototype Two-Family House Project for a Single-Family Beach House "Hay muy poco que ver", An Architectural Installation "Gato Encerrado", Project for an Installation "La Hija de Nadie", Project for an Installation Entry Project for a Chair-Design Competition "Ciclovía", Project for an Art Installation Project for "¡Ajá!", a Science Museum for Children Project for the Speculative Housing Market Color Styling for Buildings' Street Elevations Published writings Biographical notes

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Introduction

Guayaquil is a city that not only lacks a sense of history but one that has no need of it at all. As a result there is no room for something like an architectural culture, in the form of sustained recorded reflections and documentations aiming to find signs of coherent, pertinent and relevant ideas. Instead, architectural events just happen as unaccountable actions with no cultural or historical commitment or bonds. So, progress is verified as a fragmented, dispersed and poorly informed fondness for novelties sequence. Architectural practice passes uncommented, with no critical discourse filtering or ranking its contents. On that vein, architects working on articulating ideas tend to comment their

thoughts to themselves. This sort of frame of isolation has been the background, the context, of the works presented in this portfolio. The enthusiasm, the sense of achievement imbued in their process and results has been, most of the time, an implosive emotion, a private story. In consequence, texts accompanying the works furnish my own presentation, description, and explanation of them. The works are presented in chronological order, with special emphasis in showing cultural context glimpses about what a purposeful architectural practice could entail in a third world capitalist class based society, where pretentiousness evolves faster and farther than substantive progress.

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Project for a Single-Family House, “Los Esteros,” Guayaquil 1985

1. Early sketches 2. Axonometric

The project site is located in a middle class subsidized development. It is a standard 10,75 x 19,00 meters dividing lot, with a N-S longitudinal axis and a north facing street facade. Site size and urban regulations, plus my personal approach to composition, gave way to a very compact volume. On the street facade, this volume is subtracted to create, on the ground floor, a one-car garage and the main entrance exterior lobby; and, on the second floor, balconies for the main and one-son rooms and a small shared slightly detached bathroom volume. This project followed a careful observation of qualities of proportion, balance, unity, scale and construction detailing. A principle of formal spareness, esteeming from synthesis values of “the modern”, permeates the whole definition of the project. 1

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3. Street Facade 4. Windows' internal iron grids' anchor detail 5. Studies for windows' iron grids

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6. Ground floor plan 7. Second floor plan

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8. Working drawing of exterior iron doors 9. Iron exterior doors´ details

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10. West elevatin 11. Scupper detail

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Project for a Single-Family House, Ciudadela Amazonas, Guayaquil 1985-1986-

The lot for the project is a 10,75 x 18,96 meter rectangle, oriented SW-NE along its longitudinal axis, with the street facade facing SW. It is sited in a public development for the middle class, where no great vistas, nor great houses, nor public spaces exist. In the final solution, a clean and virtually light box is attained. In it, interplay between function and composition is established. This solution stems from considering concepts like proportion, unity, balance, and emphasis, within a context of formal economy. The architectural response afforded was one of basic and discreet elements that play functional, tectonic and compositional roles. The street facade presents the main entrance exterior hall with the master bedroom’s balcony hanging over it. Adjacent to these elements, a panel of shades protects first and ground floor windows corresponding to the master bedroom’s study, bathroom areas and the kitchen. Toward the SE facade a vertical central volume encompasses

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12. Street facade, early sketch 13. Axonometric

secondary entrances, children´s bedroom windows and shades, and a terrace for water tanks which allow the creation of clerestories to light the children´s study and the stairs.

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14. Longitudinal section 15. East facade, early sketch 16. Study for studio nook

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17. Ground floor plan 18. First floor plan 19. Studies for the patio facade

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20. Axonometric

Project for a Single-Family House, Guayaquil 1986

The project site is an 8x 19 meter dividing lot in a middle class suburb. A very tight one-story program was organized having an aesthetic premise in mind: to turn it to a kind of discreet architectural event. A careful crafting of a narrow and slow parallelepiped was carried out. Facing the street is the garage and main entrance, and the living room balcony. All side windows have a protective overhang and a unified formal treatment with intervals controlled by composition. Exterior rain drainage marks a lateral central axis, which yields a sense of hierarchy and focus. An open area has been left for future stairs that will lead to a future first floor. The entire program comprises a kitchen, dining, living area, the master bedroom with wardrobe and bathroom; two children bedrooms with independent wardrobes and a shared bathroom; a service dormitory with bathroom, a laundry area and a “drying patio� (for the laundry).

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21. Street facade 22. East facade

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23. Ground floor plan 24. Longitudinal section

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Project for a Family Compound at the Beach, General Villamil-Playas, Guayas 1986 The project consists of three separate houses, one for each son and their own families, and a house for the parents. The site for the project is a single property located at the Pacific Ocean rim, in a geographic area near to the Gulf of Guayaquil. The three sons’ houses are of the same type. This house type expresses a sense of clarity and simplicity within an ascending governing quality, necessary to fit in the available land. The ground floor has been left free partly for hammocks and partly for garage and an exterior shower. The first floor is for kitchen, dining, living areas, a bedroom and a bathroom it shares with the living areas. The second floor is for the master bedroom with its own bathroom and a terrace of common access. This house type has 100 sq-m of inhabitable area. The parents’ house shows a play between slightly rotated simple volumes that animates the otherwise dull elementariness of this small scheme. The carport and terrace volume intersect the living

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25. Axonometric of the son's type house

quarters volume. Shading overhangs punctuate the ocean façade. This house has 60 sq-m of habitable area. The entire project was developed having wood in mind as a dominant material.

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26. East facade 27. West facade 28, 29. Studies

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30. North facade 31. South facade

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32. Second floor plan 33. Third floor plan following page: 34. Longitudinal section 35. Model, south-east view from above 36. Studies 37. Model, north-west view 38. Model, west facade detail

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39. Axonometric, parents's house 40. Studies, parents' house

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41. Single-floor plan 42. Model, west view from above 43. Studies

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44. Model, North-west view from above 45. Model, sunshade detail

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Balandra K-Grade School, “Los Olivos,” Guayaquil

46. Model, south-east view from above

1986-87

The building is located in a new upper middle class suburb in a 30 x 30 meter corner lot, with SW and SE street sides. It is the very first building in Guayaquil specifically devoted to a K-grade school, so no local typological precedents exist. And it is also the very first one in Guayaquil that follows “the small rooms” pedagogic method; a system in which proper furnishing and arrangement is provided to create small living, kitchen, laundry, work rooms, and so on, to set a scenario for confidence, order and familiarity in school activities. The project was oriented by program needs, lot size, budget restrictions and by vernacular architectural topics from Guayaquil, referred to civic symbolism in public schools and to the relaxed use of color practiced in the lower middle class neighborhoods. A compositional layer orders the way in which things have been put together. On this matter, issues of proportion, contrast, unity, balance, hierarchy and color have been addressed. The building has a rotated central volume that is occupied by the main entrance hall and administrative offices. The two axial wings are for the pedagogic work. Smaller rotated volumes are for restrooms, kitchen and the custodian room.

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In general terms, the school is an essay over a sense of an intellectual elegance advised by the power of composition concepts and vernacular references. Early modern works by Le Corbusier and Gwathmey-Siegel are respected references for this building. Proper daylighting has been provided for all the areas. The color scheme outlines formal hierarchies, functions, details, as well as yielding psychological support for comfort. Windows were placed and stairs sized according to children´s average stature. In a second phase this building was remodeled and extended. Its architectural focus remained the same, unless these changes were not under consideration in the first project.

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47. Studies

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48. Sketches, street facade, different views 49. Model, south-west view from above 50. Model, street facade

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51. Single-floor plan

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52. Model, patio facade 53. Patio facade 54. Sketch for the main entrance 55. Main entrance detail

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56. Proportional studies 57. Street facade

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58. Interior view 59. Street facade detail

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60-61. Addition and remodeling studies

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63, 64. Remodeling chromatic studies 65. Main entrance detail

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66. Proportional Studies 67. Street facade 68. South-east view

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24. Patio facade 25-27. Patio facade details

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Casablanca Condominium Apartments, “Santa Cecilia,” Guayaquil 1986 – 87 For me, the seemingly elemental and strongly appealing architectural statements by Gwathmey & Siegel, Le Corbusier, Louis Khan and Mario Botta, have been inspirational sources for idea development about building definition in contemporary culture. Spareness, lightness, parsimony, strong but frugal expressiveness, polished and unadorned elegance, tectonic exposure, are some of the most visible and influential manifestations of these architects’ mindsets. These qualities are conveyed through compositional schemes that appeal to basic human perception filters. I consider this as playing an important role in the open acceptance of their architectures as highly refined contributions to modern living. In these architectures I admire their conceptual/formal consistency, their rhetoric and stark spatial generosity. This, for me, critical admiration pervades the work realized in this condominium project. On it, a parallelepiped is excavated and added to define the stair tower, the balconies, the apartments wings and the central atrium and skylight.

73, 74, 75. Studies

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76,77,78. Studies 79. Proportions study

The main faรงade looks toward the east; on it, large balconies with protective sunshades have been arranged. The living and dining areas are adjacent to the balconies. In the afternoon, the balconies become fresh and shaded, a gladly regarded event in the hot and humid tropics. The stair tower is daylit through a low-e glass wall. A kentia palm tree tops this tower (In the built version a small apartment replaced this idea). A narrow central atrium provides daylighting to otherwise obscure areas in the apartments. Color use recalls vernacular references from Guayaquil, and stresses compositional intentions and functional roles.

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80. Sketches for the stairs solution 81. Stairs, construction details 82. Sketches for the garage doors solution 83. Garage doors details

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84, 85. Balcony railing details 86. Axonometric and color study

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87. Longitudinal section 88. East elevation 89. First floor plan

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90. Model 91. Exterior view

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Two Projects for a Single-Family House, “Los Lagos,� Samborondon 1988 - 1991

92. First Project: studies for the main entrance and living-dining pavillion 93. Study model, view of the garage, main entrance, and living pavillion 94. Study model, view of the street facade

The First Project. A private, flat and walled residential compound for the rich, 25,6 x 60,7 meters, N-S longitudinal axis lot was assigned for this project. The south end corresponds to the street side and the north end faces an artificial lake and neighbors' backyards. The L-shaped house is a reunion of different volumes around the pool and patio area. Each of the volumetric segments raise its formal presence from the living supports pursued in the different areas and from the intermingled architectural languages assumed as a primary pedagogic platform. An open gallery surrounds the exterior dining area, the bedrooms and kitchen wings; it also borders the pool patio. A central interior gallery connects the dormitories with the rest of the house. A wooden pergola enriches and enhances the exterior dinning area. The dining, kitchen and living areas occupy independent and characteristic double height volumes. A twisted slab that spans from the entry hall volume to the entry path roof defines the main entrance.

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95. Sketch and studies for composition and building solutions 96. Study model, view of the living and dining pavillions 97. Study model, view of the patio facade

Color accompanies the volumetric arrangement as a way to enliven, identify (e.g. the red kitchen volume) and provide a sense of cultural and regional belonging. The cleanliness of volumes definition, its pretended smoothly stucco-finished surfaces, the abundance of voids, galleries, exterior shaded areas, and the bold use of color makes of the project a clear conveyor of a sense of physical and psychological lightness.

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98. Studies, the kitchen pavillion 99. Study model, view of the kitchen pavillion 100. Studies, the dormitories pavillion and gallery 101. Study model, view of the dormitories pavillion and gallery

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102. Proportion studies for the single-plan

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103. Studies for the dormitories gallery. 104. Schematic east facade.

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105. Schematic north facade 106. Schematic south facade

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107 - 110. Studies for the Second Project

The Second Project. A less fragmented scheme was developed in a second project. A sober relationship between subtly delineated and differentiated volumes was established. The L-shaped layout remains, and a volumetric hierarchy, based on heights, intersections and contrasts between straight and slanting shapes in elevation as well as in plan, unfolds the habitable contents of the house. A marked interest for natural lighting and ventilating is matched through appropriate window type, quantity and position. Generous shading is provided through screens, recessed windows, overhangs and galleries. Volume surfaces are thought to be smoothly stucco or clad with polished marble as in the case of the main dining wing. The use of color seeks to enliven, identify and to root culturally.

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111 - 114. Studies for the Second Project

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115. Studies for the main entry-dining-living pavillion and single plan 116. Studies for the patio gallery 117. Studies for the pavillions assemblage 118. Studies for the living interior and dormitories pavillion

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119. Elevations

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120. Axonometrics

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Project for a single-family House, “Kennedy Norte," Guayaquil 1989

Situated on a 12,00 x 17,50 meter dividing lot, the single floor house presents a gabled scheme, inside which the whole domestic program is resolved. Three elements can be seen: the pavilion, the kitchen and dinning areas roof and the living and master bedroom areas roof. In the street façade, a garage and main entrance portico occupies half its extension; and a shading overhang fully protects the living room window. A flat reinforced concrete slab roofs over the pavilion.

121. Preliminary Sketches 122. Studies, street facade, interiors 123. Studies, clerestories, ceiling ventilation, and roof drainage details

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124. Studies, flat and gable roofs.

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125. Studies for the streets facade.

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126. Studies for the street fence 127. Studies, street fence alternatives

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128. Plan 129. Roof plan

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130. South and Nort facades 131. Longitudinal sections

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“Balandra – Colinas de Los Ceibos” Elementary School, “Colinas de los Ceibos,” Guayaquil 1991 – 1995 The construction rises on a slope on the north side of Blue Hill; in the surroundings, a high middle class suburb extends widely, presenting an individualistic ‘style wars’ scene, in the tradition of lacking a traditional manner. The school reuses a former racetrack mound stand, which for several years served as a homeless shelter and road construction machinery garage. The entire original structure was maintained. The ground floor was for offices and younger grades; the first and second floors were for intermediate and older grades. The stands were adapted for auditorium type rooms. A new reinforced concrete structure with metal roofing was erected to accommodate the auditorium type rooms. A careful reinforcement of the original structure was carried out. The use of exposed concrete on new structures and exposed clay block walls was a cost and time saving decision. The use of color in window frames, columns and canopies, and the use of peculiar forms as in the columns supporting

an added wing set a series of lively emphatic formal notes that guides the reading of the building and relates it to its tropical cultural context. Playing grounds intermingle with garden areas in a playful geometric arrangement. A large play yard was created, and big old trees were preserved.

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132. Study for K-Grade area doors 133. K-Grade area doors

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134. Studies for main entrance canopy 135. Main entrance canopy 136. Studies for supplies store 137. Supplies store

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138, 139. Studies for playground and gardens 140, 141. Playground and gardens

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142. Study for added structures for classrooms 143. View of new tower encasing existing stairs 144. New structures for classrooms

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145. Study for main entrance plaza 146. Main entrance plaza

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147, 148. Views of existing estructure 149, 150. Views of adapted estructuresh

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151. Interior view of one of the new towers added to encase existing stairs 152. Interior of foreign language room

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153. Interior, science lab 154. Electrical tubing detail

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Project for a Single-Family Beach House, “Ballenita,” Santa Elena

155. Model

with Xavier Blum

1991 This permanent residence house was to be sited in a knoll dropping north to a cliff and the Pacific Ocean; and south to the inland landscape of hills and eroded plains. A disorganized fabric of residential buildings surrounds the project’s site. Xavier Blum and his wife, a young couple with two children, had decided to move from the city of Guayaquil to Ballenita –a quiet vacation town devoid of any special feature but its elevated seaside position. Xavier Blum, an artist-painter and surfer, had sketched his own ideas about the house in a series of different images ranging from fishlike schemes to a primitive lake dwelling type topped by a four gable roof. From the above-mentioned ideas, the last one called my attention when he asked for my help to develop the project. That was because of its conciseness and inspiring primitive appearance. After a brief review we agreed to work starting from it. In the studio process, the fourgable-dwelling became an atrium roofed with translucent plastic

sheets and crowned by a turbine attic ventilator. The interior of the house was planned to look toward this atrium, in which the stairway is housed. The shop and social areas were laid along the east-west axis, parallel to the coast-line, in the form of two regular structures covered with reinforced-concrete vaults, due to its thermal properties for easier cooling. The master and children bedrooms were laid along the north-south axis to create a shared proximity with the social and service areas. The kitchen, bath and utility rooms were housed in the roundedquarter circle- wedges placed in the diagonal axis. The whole house rests over piles above ground level for ventilation and free covered area needs. The main materials for the project were reinforced concrete, masonry, painted stucco and solid wood.

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Project for a Gymnasium, “Tornero III,” Samborondón 1992

156. Studies, structure and masonry articulation 157. Perspective sketch

with Rafael Dunkley

The site for the gymnasium is an irregular trapezoidal corner lot situated in a high middle class suburb characterized by crippled versions of unclear origin palatial villas. The project is an exercise in a different direction, it is basically a validation of the built elements through good sense tectonic definition in a context of compositional and comfort concerns. The lot’s shape, size and position, and the different foreseen activities dictate the choice of a three-unit scheme. Two formally similar wings flank a central reception/administration and boutique pavilion, which is placed by the lot’s corner. From these lateral wings, the larger one houses the exercise areas; and the smaller one is for restrooms, showers, lockers, massage, storage and kitchenette. Each lateral wing is defined as a neat parallelepiped roofed by a metal-panel prism. The triangular plan of the central unit helps to articulate the building along the lot’s corner’s outline with the aid of two transitional zones that link this unit with the lateral ones. An emphasized portico serves to frame the animated place’s name signage and main entrance. Large windows were requested in order to make the exercise, boutique

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and reception activities visible from the street. These windows have a blind formal counterpart in the services wing in order to balance the unity of the building. The lateral units’ windows and the central units’ street façade’s windows are punctuated by a row of small triangular windows, which establish a note of formal softness, rhythm and unity in the starkly defined compound. Glass block panels distinguish the linking zones in the facades. In plan, they are signed by clear tectonic demarcation and level change. The selection of exposed clay block, exposed metal and concrete structures and exposed metal roofing were cost saving choices. Color is applied to the large windows’ exterior masonry frames, to the main entrance’s portico and to the small plastic figures inlaid in the main door’s glass frame. Color is also considered in the interior; where it is applied to the exposed roof’s metal joist, to the reception zone’s screen, to wall surfaces and partitions. The cultural references for the color selection are the Guayaquil tropical vernacular and the very open and receptive inclusions carried out by the Sotsass associates group.

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158. Studies, roof and columns structural articulation 159. Studies, street facade 160. Working drawing, street facade elevation

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161. Working drawing, plan

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162. Axonometric, south-west view

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163. Axonometric north-east view

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Project for a two-family House, “Parques del Rio,” Samborondón 1993

164. Sketch 165. Working drawing, street facade

with Rafael Dunkley

Enclosed by high walls, the private master-planned community where the project’s site lies is one of several similar communities built for safety, privacy and instantaneous social and cultural lineage. As a typical feature in these communities we have a set of redundant versions of badly rendered past epoch style houses. The project is a different approach to this architectural drama, it introduces formal qualities coming from a disregarded esthetic, about which the inhabitants of this type of communities would like to avoid all memory and contact: the barrio’s beauty, the half-breeders’ urban quarters vernacular esthetic. On this vein, or in the barrio way, the house features a plain but firm architectural presence enlivened by primary colors, elemental shapes, scale/hierarchy relations, rhythm and stratification. A lack of solemnity, a crisp and playful appearance characterizes the spontaneous esthetic we, contradictorily, were striving for through methodic design. That contradiction’s tension left its mark in the resulting project. And we hope it did for good. In the street façade an overhang

extending across creates a veranda like entry porch. An arched transom accents the main entrance door. Backband and windowsill moldings adorn the sole living’s window looking the street. Cylindrical, painted yellow structural columns punctuate the street façade’s upper part by echoing limits and changes in the detached wall behind them. Multicolored ceramic tiles clad a lintel like slab that extends over that wall and over its lateral prolongations. This feature is mirrored in the opposite patio façade. Aligned with the dividing wall between the stair void and the parent’s bedroom’s closet, a flat slab roofs that room; while an asymmetric gable painted clear blue roofs the second floor remaining areas. Shed roofs cover the service rooms. East and west facades, which mirror each other, show no special features but clerestories, the service entrance, a down stairs storage room doors, the stair window, a ventilation porthole and the front overhang’s fish-like false bracket (the later, also an homage to Guayaquil vernacular esthetic).

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166. Detail fo fish-like false bracket 167. Working drawing, east elevation 168. East elevation, proportions study

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169. Working drawings of ground and second floor plans

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170. Axonometric, north-west view

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171. Axonometric, south-east view

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Project for a Private High School, “La Prosperina,” Guayaquil 1994 – 95

The school administration board acquired a 5.5 hectare site on a ridge in the city’s periphery, a place quite far from any urban context and close to a private university campus. They called for an entire new high school with all the facilities that were to the point: game grounds, pool, classrooms, labs, administration, cafeteria, chapel, and parking and recreation courts. Due to the site’s topographic complexity, the project’s orientation needs, budget parameters and two big old paired ceiba trees, it was necessary to confront design aims with prospective earthworks as a premise for the general layout definition. Preliminary approaches were developed to cope with these facts. On this regard, different versions of classroom pavilions, as well as different location alternatives for game grounds and parking lots were tested on drawn and modeled contours. In the definitive version, a long arrangement of three independent but connected three story units for classrooms ran from east to west through the ridge’s higher

172. General plan

contours, eluding the ceiba trees’ integrity. Game grounds were placed in lower and quasi-leveled and less earthwork demanding zones. The parking lot was allocated over a cautiously sloped side adjacent to the street. The gymnasium occupies a lower zone, profiting the preceding slope for the construction of the mound stand. The chapel sits on a lower area that fits its size and access needs from the street. Two three story towers, a quarter of a circle shape in plan, articulates the classrooms buildings. Labs and special activities rooms are housed on these towers. Two independent service towers flank the classroom compound. Classrooms are repetitive standard sizes, off single-loaded shaded ga-lleries, facing north and south for lesser sunray impact. Climatic design responses are also accomplished through shading from overhangs and natural cross ventilation. Double level, ventilation friendly metal sheds crown the classroom buildings. Flat concrete slabs roof the service and lab towers. 172

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173. Studies for classroom pavillions

The idea of different “orders� per floor influenced the architectural composition of the classrooms buildings. A Guayaquil vernacular like gallery defines the ground floor and two discretely different colonnades border the first and second floor galleries. The cafeteria pavilion features a hybrid barrel and shed roof with gable dormers, whose intersection allows for south facing shaded clerestories and exhaust fans. Relevant needs like formal identity, air renovation, indirect daylighting and construction schedule favored the selection of such a roof profile, hybridation and tectonics. Encompassing the configured architectural approach, the building is flanked by scale giving, fan like, exposed concrete lowered arched porticoes. A generous gallery partially wraps around the enclosed part of the building, creating fresh and shaded exterior space for commensals. The gable dormers bring out the dining hall area at the same time that

provides an extra amount of filtered daylight to the interior. Exposed steel and concrete structural elements have been carefully detailed on bare architectural tectonics behalf. The cafeteria plan is simple and clearly zoned, comprising a snack bar, kitchen and services areas, and the entry and dining halls. A sinuous wall horizontally pierced by a ribbon window animates the in and out dining hall’s border. The lockers and services pavilion follow the same design attitude and specifications outlined for the cafeteria. Thus, clearly detailed exposed architectural tectonics, inexpensive forthright materials and laconic formal elegance and identity become once again key building characteristics. The design sameness includes the barrel metallic roof and the provision of an exterior shaded gallery. The followed project ideas were intended to achieve a neat imposing presence for a relatively unassuming architectural complex.

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174. Studies for the cafeteria 175. Cafeteria, working drawings

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176. Cafeteria, perspective

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177. Studies for the lockers and service pavillion 178 - 179. The lockers and service pavillion, working drawings

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Single–Family House, “La Puntilla,” Samborondón 1994 – 97

Interior design by: Pilar Gómez de Velazco

The house rises on a rectangular 20.06 x 40.08-meter lot, SW – NE oriented through its longitudinal axis, with a single street side facing SW. The lot sits in a private master–planned community that occupies a triangular tip of land flanked by two rivers that become one at its very tip. On the driveway side the development presents a high metal mesh fence and a gatehouse preceded by a gardened fountain. In the neighborhood showy exercises of style, without discernible time, place and rule, dominate the residential architectural landscape. It is an unsettling situation I wanted to avoid in my practice. This house is also an exercise of style, but channeled this time by my interest in Guayaquil’s vernacular esthetic; the vaulted buildings of Japanese architect Arata Isozaki; an encounter with Claude Nicolas Ledoux’s Rotunda of La Villete in Paris, and the clients involvement with the project. Sometime during an architectural tour in Guayaquil, a unique vernacular building sets itself in my mind due to its clumsy charms. Its

columns, rhomboidal ornaments, straight moldings and emphatic color scheme caused on me a memorable impression. They talked to me of a non-succedaneous sensibility, of a kind of esthetical rough material at its very best. I felt very in touch with it. Through the barrel–vaulted buildings of Japanese architect Arata Isosaki I came to know about the existence of Claude Nicolas Ledoux´s work. But it was a gift when during a visit to the City Museum of Paris, I realized the existence of a venerable Ledoux building in the Parisian Place de Stalingrad. A second gift arrived when I got there without heading for it. As a Jaguar car ad says, “a potent spirit makes its presence felt,” Ledoux´s Rotunda freed me of some type of narrowness. Experiences like this find storage somewhere in the mind and wait. In 1994 a young couple with three children asked me to design their house. They were traveled and educated people with whom I dare to share concepts and visions. During the first sketching sessions

181. Vernacular building in General Gómez and Padre Solano Streets, Guayaquil 182. C.N. Ledoux's Rotunda of La Villete, Paris 183. Arata Isozaki's apartment building for the International Building Exhibition, Berlin 184. Studies

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185. Street facade, working drawing 186. Studies

I was disoriented, my concepts were clear but not their building embodiment. I set this work aside for a while, a long pause instead. When I reassumed it, the above mentioned referential buildings and experiences infiltrated the new sketching work. A fluid and pertinent scheme came to the surface, filled with energy of place preserved from its sources. From that moment on I felt very reliant in the act of assembling the mutually extraneous sensibilities: Ledoux¥s, Isozakiís, and the Guayaquil¥s vernacular one. On achieving this task, my admiration for Arata Isosakiís work was of great help. The force and poetry with which he moves himself through art, architecture or technology from present time and history show his wisdom to recognize where phenomena distant in time and space may come to terms. If that wisdom may come in a lesser version, e.g. like a perception, then I perceived it was its plain tectonic vigor invoking meaningful traditions and tropes where architecture and life meet for both fortune, what allowed a dialogue between the mentioned precedents.

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The resulting building is a whole different than the amount of its parts; it raises from distant but tunable sensibilities. The house assemblage consists of three distinguishable entities that hold the different functions. The pedestal, which comprises the entrance portal in the exterior, and supports the rotunda and gallery whose roof slab articulates the vault capped adjacent volume in the compound. A parallelepiped juts out the pedestal for garage and canopy uses. The pedestal contains the vestibule, a small livingroom and the guest and service rooms. On the ground floor, the two story volume contains the main living and dining-rooms, the kitchen and patio gallery; the second floor contains the three childrenís bedrooms, the study and the doubleñheight family living-room. The rotunda houses the parentsí bedroom and bathroom; the corresponding dressing room is allocated aside the rotunda, close to the gallery. Two stairways serve the house, one from public to private spaces and one from private to private ones.

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187. South-east elevation and longitudinal section

Despite its esthetical sources’ flamboyance, the house is pervaded by a sense of formal moderation. Its color and materials palette combines accents of natural marbles and slate stone with softaqua- green, corn-clear- yellow, clear ochre tints and white. This imbues the house with serenity, a feeling of amplitude and a very discrete eloquence. Daylight brilliance and sun perpendicularity are tempered by the selected colors. Shaded windows, glass blocks and wooden trellis lessen and filter daylight. On the ground floor views go from the main living, dining and kitchen through a floor to ceiling glass wall and a gallery toward the gardened pool and basketball court patio. On the second floor a full glass wall allows views from the family living-room, studio and stairs landings toward the gallery surrounding the rotunda and farther out. In this case, instead of panoramic, views become episodic and fragmented. 187

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188. Working drawings, second floor, rotunda plan -modified version-, and ground floor plan

Clear-beige polished natural Italian marble covers interior floors except for kitchen and service areas. Natural cedar wood and stainless steel brackets are used for stair railings. Natural wood veneer covers one of the vestibule walls from floor to ceiling. The main entrance doors and jams combine natural cedar and natural wood veneer, it is framed by a marbled arch in the exterior face. A marbled mosaic, paraphrasing the entrance doors’ ornamental motif, characterizes the entrancegallery’s floor. A marble combination is also used for the patio gallery’s bar, on whose cast keystone face it has been carved the same main entrance doors’ ornamental theme. The skeleton of measures of the house is a careful essay on golden section proportional harmonies.

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189. View from the street

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190, 191. Interior view, the vaulted family room

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192, 193. Master bed room. Interior view

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194. View of the main stairs 195. View of the private stairs

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196. View of the main entrance 197. View of the front gallery

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199. Pedestal and rotunda detail 200. Gallery around the rotunda, detail

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201. The bar counter in the patio gallery 202. View from the patio gallery toward the family-dining room and grill stand

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203. View into the main living-dining room 204. The family dining room

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205. View from the studio room toward the gallery sorrounding the rotunda 206. Proportion study

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Project for a Two–Family House, “Parques de los Ceibos,” Guayaquil 1997 The project’s site is a 26 x 20-meter lot situated in a corporate development, which is enclosed by a high bordering wall. The project’s street facade looks south toward a tree–filled–hill beyond the community’s enclosing wall. The north facade faces the patio, its enclosing wall and the suburb–fabric beyond. Eluding the preposterous and pretentious houses that surround the project’s site, a trusty appeal to Guayaquil’s vernacular esthetic strength and coherence was brought to the arena. The project adheres to the clean, pertinent and showy architectural outcomes developed during the first half of the 20th century by actually non-promoted, non-educated and never again existent master builders. Through a singular hybridization of colonial urban ordinances, Italian and French models (dominantly) brought to the city by the wealthy cocoa bean traders and immigrants, their own and consistent tropical sensibility, the available money, materials and technology and the assumed architectural social codes, those builders set their “style.”

A rough and straight balance characterizes the components of the here focused vernacular architectural elegance. Its galleries derive from colonial ordinances which, attending to the climate, established its use and size. The wood tectonic comes from combined land and naval carpenters’ techniques (the city harbored one of the Royal Dockyards). The compositional subtlety shows fused remains from native and very simplified echoes from European schemes. I find this esthetic rich and understandable; I feel able to dare with it; I enjoy it; and once again I have resorted to it as “my formal–cultural reference mask.” In this project the functional program and future tenants’ life - style could be harmonized with the above mentioned vernacular architecture. The needed garage and entry porch was interpreted in gallery like terms. This gallery, like its original sources, characterizes the whole ground floor’s extension, from one neighbor’s property wall to the other one. At the same time, this gallery works like a pedestal,

207, 208. An example of vernacular architecture in Guayaquil, a mixed-use building in the intersection of García Moreno and El Oro Streets

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208 92


209. Street facade 210. Studies

“on whose top” rests the upper floor. This “technique,” already used in vernacular cases, allowed a clean and synthesized solution for functional and compositional demands. Its curved development in plan adds strength to the composition, compensating its low height and contextual isolation. The upper floor’s anatomy adheres to the vernaculars windowed-belt, molded-cornice and wall–ornaments, handled like figures over the peripheral–wall–ground. The cornice is thought to protect the facade from rain–water. The windowed–belt helps to provide unity to fenestration, and the wall–ornaments are notes of visual rhythm -a technique already used in the gallery-. A barren–vaulted volume juts out the roof for stairs day-lighting and general natural ventilation. The living and dining rooms, the kitchen, the service areas and the social patio have been distributed on the ground floor; the dormitories were placed on the second floor.

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211. Ground-floor and second floor plans

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212. Studies for the volume containing the stairs 213. Section through a stair

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213 95


214. A vernacular house in Guayaquil 215. Study for the entrance and garage gallery 216. Axonometric, north-west view

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217. Vernacular house in Guayaquil, detail 218. Study for the entrance and garage gallery 219. Axonometric, north-west view

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Project for a Two-Family House, “Portofino,” Guayaquil 1997

The project was thought to occupy a 17.50 x 35.00 meters lot amid a private residential area. It was meant to be a prototype for serial construction. On that matter, the project had two exterior versions. In the first one, a clean volume was treated as a minimal plastic statement, inspired by one of Guayaquil’s tropical vernacular styles. In so doing, the street façade follows a formal and spatial stratification developed to achieve a stark elegance, as well as a favorable physical condition through economical building means. It is verified in the generous and shadowed gallery running side-by-side at the main entry level. A “folded” continuous surface and a pair of oval-section columns set a softly balanced equilibrium, which is in itself the ample gallery’s identity. A neat volume juts and rests over the gallery; masonry bands in bass relief, echoing a balcony and a lintel, give it a distinctive light formal quality. A segmented wall marks the division of the house in two halves. Side and rear facades needed no other than a neutral formal definition.

220. Vernacular building in Guayaquil 221. Study

The ground floor holds the living room, the kitchen, the service rooms, and the dining room with its panoramic glassed screen looking towards the gardened pool-patio. The top floor holds the bedrooms. A sense of neatness, laconism and lightness is ever present through this project. The second version alters the street façade, strengthening the gallery’s body and the upper floor’s parapet to achieve a pretended residential image. Shapes and colors interplay for formal characterization. A tropical-contemporary sensibility guided the choosing of colors and cleanly defined shapes. 220

221 98


222. Ground floor and second floor plans

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223. Model 224. Model 225. Longitudinal section

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224

225 100


226. Proportion and composition study 227. Model 228. Longitudinal section through a stair

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228 101


229. Vernacular building in Guayaquil 230. Street facade 231. Studies for the modified version 232. Lateral facade

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233. View from the patio 234. View from the street

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Project for a Condominium, “Parques de los Ceibos,” Guayaquil 1997

Arranged over a 43.5 degree sloped parcel, the entire building looks down on built-up areas from other corporative suburbs. Other buildings will flank the site in a possible future. I envisioned a building with a quality of visual economy. Relatively thin and exposed staggered terrace-slabs work well on this purpose. An unobstructed ascending composition is thus provided for a building that is set fitted to the slope. The building is composed of two two-level houses homes piled on top of each other, so that an occupant in an upper area can use the roof of a lower as a terrace. One of the homes is boarded from the upper street to downward areas. In the other house, it happens the opposite way. The terraces run along a staggered and thick eastside wall, bordered by side-byside built-in plant-boxes thought to house “cafeto brasileño” small trees. This wall adds a strong vertical counter-part for the terraces, in a dialogue of mutually reinforcing contrast. A warm terra-cotta color has been specified for this

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wall. Cobalt blue, a soft yellow color and natural aluminum tubes are for the terraces’ slabs’ edges, breastworks, and railings, respectively. The east-side gap between the building proper and the parcel’s edge serves an important function in terms of drainage, circulation, ventilation, and lighting. Staggered flower-boxes line this gap’s stairs. West-side terraces’ prolongations coincide with the parcel’s edge-wall; flower-boxes, set on top on balconies line adjacent to this wall segments. Unnoticeable but carefully done detailing underlay the whole project. A sense of openness and lightness, and a decidedly affirmed friendly presence identifies the building’s discourse.

235. Studies

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236. Longitudinal section

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237. Upper house, plans

237 106


238. North view

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239. Axonometric

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Project for a Single-Family House, “Entrerios,” Guayaquil 1998

The site for this house is a flat 10 x 20-meter dividing parcel on the south-main street, in a densely populated middle and high middle class suburb. The parcel’s street side looks south toward a concrete wall that lines-up along the development’s edge. An entry tower-like-volume painted dark terra-cotta, in a contrasting relationship with a warm gray and lemon-green and white painted additive cubic compound, and a corn-yellow stairs tower sets an asymmetric and svelte order for a house that deliberately plays with unserious but carefully composed bits of solemnity, as a form of critical insertion among the preposterously solemn symbolvillas of the vicinity. The stair-tower leads up to an open terrace that compensates the house lacking of patio. This tower features a fan-like fenestration that encompasses the stair-ramp development. At the ground level, the entry tower houses a small porch and the vestibule; in the first floor it houses the walk-in closet and the

240. Studies

bathroom for the master bedroom. A synthesized cornice crowns this tower in a formal gesture echoing a Guayaquilean vernacular resource for elegance and façade protection. The rest of the areas are housed in a quite neutral volume, from which juts a closed balcony outlining the master bedroom placement. A thin overhang protects this balcony’s window. Service areas, living, dining and kitchen rooms have been arranged on the ground floor. The first floor is for the bedrooms.

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241. Elevation facing the street and longitudinal section through the stair

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242. Second and ground floor plans

242 111


243. Axonometric, north-west view 244. Axonometric, south-east view

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245. Sketch 246. Model

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Project for a Prototype Single-Family Beach House, “La Milina,” Salinas 1998 To be serially produced for a corporate master-planned community in a neighborhood five minutes from Salinas beach, this house sets its identity inspired in the near around vernacular little towns. Ornamented parapets, balconies, galleries, luminous colors, and simple forms characterize the vernacular architecture of the surroundings. It is the formal grace and functional pertinence of those elements that influenced to apply them to the design of this prototype house. Each house is thought to occupy a narrow parcel between two dividing walls, one meter each from the house. Two public facades were required, one facing the entrance wall, and the other looking toward the communal patio. For the middle class taste, the color scheme was subdued if compared with its vernacular references. In the patio façade, a warm clear gray was specified for the galleria’s frame; a pastel yellow was for the columns flanking the parapet which goes with a primary saturated yellow; and a dark violet blue is to be applied to the ornaments crowning

247. Preliminary studies

the flanking columns. White was specified for the rest of the house. It is a single-floor 130 sq-meter house; it comprises an entrance porch, a vestibule, the living, dining and kitchen areas, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and the gallery facing the communal patio. A serene and warm attitude comes from this economically profiled house.

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248. Preliminary studies

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249. Design panel

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250. Model

250 117


Project for a Prototype Single-Family House, “Verona 3,” Samborondón 1998

The project was developed for a six-houses-condominium situated in a rapidly growing zone of walled-communities for the middle class up to the wealthy one. In this zone, new developments sprawl over the flat lands from former rice-plantations advantageously located between two copious rivers. Not so far from this private residential area, small towns and farms dating from past agrarian epochs still remain the same. A private developer asked for this project, assigning the functional program, the area, the materials and finishes, and the corresponding cost-saving claims. The plan of the community provided lots with area enough for the house itself and a lateral private patio, toward which the living, dining and upper floor’s vistas were directed. The house has been conceived as a concise volumetric interplay. Its identity and value stems from the studied coordination between the functional program and the basic compositional qualities of the building. The house is resolved

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and postulated as a statement of balance. The emphasis of its formal presence appeals to no other resource than the fluid and strong perceptivity of noiselessly shaped and arranged elemental forms. An L-shaped volume folds around a tower-like volume in which the stairs and part of the service areas have been housed. This layout helps to set an unobstructed and clear internal and external arrangement. In the ground floor, the L-shaped volume contains the social and the service areas, on the upper floor it holds the family room and the bedrooms. A small but notorious portal frames the main entrance. The whole house enjoys adequate natural lighting and ventilation. The general construction specifications consider, among others, a reinforced-concrete frame, white painted stuccoed concrete-block, concrete-layer over steel-panel for roofing, aluminum window-frames, and natural-wood doors. Other specifications were left open to change according to clients' demands

251. Studies

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252. Studies 253. Site plan

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253 119


254. Design panel

254 120


255. Model

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Project for a Prototype two-Family House, “Parques de Los Ceibos,� Guayaquil 1998

The project was developed for a sloped parcel on the south side of Blue Hill, within a walled condominium-community. The house has been laid out on the parcel following the community's design guidelines. A dividing wall visibly runs along the north-south axis, marking an ordering note for the building's interior and exterior arrangement. A twin-mirrored-house has been set on each side of this wall, in such a way that a resolute presence for the compound has been defined. In addition to functional demands and size limitations, the internal layout also obeys topographic adaptation, and to prevention on costly land-work and structural retaining walls. Exteriorly, the building has been presented as a stark and quiet composition made from elemental forms, symmetrical balance, soft contrasts, and golden section proportions. The internal distribution of the house looks for plenty of natural lighting and ventilation, and for easy and fluid circulation. An exterior patio occupies the raised back section of the slope, and shows a massive retaining stone-wall that lines its back edge with a sinuous

course, and allows for a gardened terrace in a step over to the patio's level. Part of the community's edgewall stands behind the sinuous wall. A balcony extends from the patio and looks out over the lateral setback space below. Exterior stairs communicating the ground level and the raised patio have been fitted between the patio's balcony, the lateral edge-wall and the sinuous-wall. A series of staggered plant-boxes accompany the stairs course along the edge-wall. An uninterrupted and thin plant-box runs over the patio's balcony's edge. This project was requested for serial construction by a private developer, under established size limitations and cost-saving guidelines.

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256,257. Preliminary studies

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258. Studies for Street Elevations

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259. Plans, First and Second

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260. Elevation, Section

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261. Studies 262. Sketch, Perspective view 263. Model

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“Hay muy poco que ver (pero bastante que leer), ” An Architectural Installation, X. Blum Gallery, Guayaquil 1988

264. Early studies

with Xavier Blum

The installation establishes an interaction between various elements to an environment for contemplation and social interaction. This environment is raised from self-referential geometrical insertions, in which three characteristic components intervene. First, twelve parallelepipeds run along an elliptical path; four of these elements are painted orange; four are painted clear blue; and four are painted clear aquagreen. The last ones occupy a position around the tips of the ellipse’s long axis, in two by two groups, in the form of a transition sign. The clear-ones occupy one of the ellipse’s hemispheres. The orange ones occupy the opposite hemisphere. The elliptical path goes inscribed in a double-square rectangle, having as its long axis the rectangle’s diagonal. The rectangle occupies the gallery’s area up to the limit. Second, two laurel-wood panels create a funnel-shaped aisle. One of the panels simulates to run through a dividing wall. At the narrower extreme of the aisle, both panels suggest to extend beyond

the gallery’s limits. The panels are built in the form exposed-laurel wood latticework, allowing for human contact through them. A threshold has been opened in the shortest panel; its profile repeats the angles in which the panels intersect the ellipse’s short axis. Third, a canopy-like structure completes the installation. It is made of painted PVC four inch roundtubes that support an exposedlaurel wood frame filled with festive paper-hangings. The canopy placement is defined by two of its vertexes occupying geometrically meaningful points in the doublesquare rectangle framing the ellipse. The mutual intersections between the so defined ellipse, panels and canopy, untie a dynamic of provoking, persuasive and intriguing environmental situations. The installation sets forth an architectural experience that is a fact but mostly a potential.

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265. The double square rectangle 266. The ellipse 267. The screens and the aisle 268. The canopy

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269. The overall pla 270. Sketch, perspective view

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271. Plan-working drawing and sketches

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272. The instalation

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273, 274. Detail views

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275, 276. Detail views

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277, 278. Detail views

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"Gato Encerrado" Project for an Installation for the 6th Cuenca Biennal, San Francisco Square, Cuenca

279. Aerial View

with Aurelio Molina

1998 The installation is a pavilion-shrine for the joy of the moment-memorypotential focussed in a detached from an excess of fragmented-information reality-discourse represented by the adorable Felix the Cat and this his quiet, simple and friendly organized place. In this installation what you see is what you see; there is no sub-text, nor semantic intricacies; there is no moral message, nor any attempt to denounce anything, or complain, or prescription. There is just grace, fluidness, transparency and unity. The dark side of this installation is its dangerous belief in not having one. The pavilion shows a neat latticework made of naturally finished medium density board. The structure of the pavilion is a solid wood frame. Cylindrical and void metal-mesh columns occupy each of the four pavilion's corners, providing scale enhancement, volumetric and material contrast, and a rich quality of simultaneous lightness and heaviness. A feline formal association characterizes the pavilion's profile. In this vein, we may say that the

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280. Section 281. Sketches

ears over the columns give place to a species of half-pyramids whose faces are made of transparent yellow acrylic sheets, and go lighted from below, and are supported by corpulent non-massive L-shape walls-columns. Inside and outside, the soft solid, massive-light corner compounds render a clear sense of limits, identity, territoriality, and orientation. The corner compounds flank the welcoming swinging entrance's double-doors. Inside the pavilion twelve different images of a frankly charming Felix the Cat have been deployed, plus a thirteenth one that repeats in both double-doors. Each of the images is mirrored on its back so they may be seen from outside through the latticework, or directly in the case of the doors.

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282. Facade 283. Interior

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284. Exterior View

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“La Hija de Nadie” Project for an installation for the “Frenesí” Exhibition, Mall del Sol, Guayaquil 1999

285. Early sketch and studie drawings

with Aurelio Molina

“La Hija de Nadie” is a place, but a non-prescriptive one. It is an essay with basic and fundamental symbols of order: symmetry, unity, transparency, movement, balance, contrast, color, system, rhythm. It embodies an elemental handling of those symbols with no further communicative intention than its sole presence and articulation, in one of the so many possible terms. We are interested in making the implicit environmental power in these dosed steps visible. We empower this approach by making the installation to react upon human presence on its domain. The whole installation rests over a plywood and metal frame platform supported by a set of perimetrical springs fixed to a ”foundation-platform.” Movement sensors activate a system of air pumps, and halogen light sources set aligned with the sinusoidal water-filled acrylic-tubular-columns. The air released into the water travels upward through the columns in the form of bubbles. The activated light is supposed to interplay with the latter phenomenon. Which pump and lights get

activated depends on which part of the base-platform is pressed by the people, and on what intensity is exerted such pressure. Light and air pump activation does not necessarily happen in a tied space and time fashion. Light color is not necessarily the same for the different columns. The chosen colors stem from a tropical-vernacular sensibility. The bubbles nourish the fish that live in the round translucent yellow-acrylic tubes sited in the upper part of the installation; the bubbles reach the round tubes through the horizontal prolongation of the columns. A white-acrylic “slab,” containing auxiliary air pumps to nourish the fish, tops the structure. The installation interior is partially enclosed by an elevated transparent pink-acrylic parallelepiped, which is supported by the sinusoidal columns, having its upper surface occupied by the crisscrossed horizontal columns’ prolongation and the aquarium-round-tubes.

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286. Perspective view

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287. Interior view from below 288. View from below

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289. Detail 290. View from above

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Entry Project for a Chair-Design Competition, Quito 1992

291. Design panel

with Rafael Dunkley

The project is both a joke and a consequent answer. It is thought to provide a relative protection from the sunrays, as well as sitting comfort and ease of movement in the surroundings. It is a chair for a bar on a deck at the beach. The whole idea of the chair finds support in clichÊs of the tropical-visual-culture. A canopy, made of stainless steel parts and a fabric stamped in vivid colors with big flower motifs, associate the chair with the sun and many possible tropical gardens. The backrest of the chair is made of plastic sheets and resembles the green foliage of palm-trees. The armrests are made of transparent amber-acrylic sheets, inserting a sort of novelty cherished by the tropical sensibility. The upholstery-seat uses a mamey solid-color fabric that plays in analogous color harmony with the chair’s components around. The supporting beams and legs are made of solid teakwood. The legs have been shaped in a zigzag fashion, alluding to progressive and beating rhythm, a movement language easily understood and shared in

tropical cultures. Rubber casters mounted on metallic harnesses allow the chair to move at discrete will. Stainless steel bars have been used to fasten the chair’s legs and like footrest. The canopy is thought to be adjustable through a mecanism similar to the one used in a baby stroller. A hidden metal frame helps to keep together the supporting and sitting components. The chair project interweaves functional, manufacturing and semantic concerns, defining an image that recalls a sensibility characteristic of somewhere in the tropics.

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292. Front view 293. Rear view

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294. Design panel 295. Side view

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“Ciclovía” Project for an Art Installation for a Highway-Bridge, Guayaquil 2001

296. A full equipped bike 297. The bike path viewed through the columns

with Aurelio Molina

Due to the spontaneous use of traffic infrastructure by unsolicited artists, political propaganda and gang messengers, the City Hall of Guayaquil created, by March 2001, a Commission for the planning and execution of controlled artwork for those structures. On this regard, the Commission adopted the “entries by invitation” format to receive the proposals from which they were to choose the ones that would satisfy their terms of acceptance. In the bill of requirements, the Commission stated just the following goals: to improve the urban image of the highway-bridges selected for the contest; and, to change the reading of those structures by way of an artistic intervention. Having in mind a long cherished idea of a bike path for the city, we accepted the invitation. About thirty years ago bikes were a common means of transportation and fun in our urban scene. 146

They were also a field for vernacular technical and aesthetical demonstrations. Highly ornamented and equipped (lights, small flags, garlands, extra seats, bright stuff, radio, mirrors, horns) bikes were characteristic objects of cultural distinction. Actually it is too dangerous to use a bike in the city. Frenetic, overloaded traffic, combined with the action of street robbers (or the latter using bikes to simulate accidents) have lead to a serious decline of bike users. Our project, recognizing the very remote practical possibilities for this and future local Governments to subvert this form of automatic exclusion, presented an impossible bike path as the only one possible in our city. In accordance with the contest, we use the highway-bridge structure, but not its vehicle lanes which are unofficially exclusive for cars, instead we use- its underside and massive reinforced concrete supports.

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298. The bike's control panel 299. Detail view

So, our bike path goes upside down and through the dematerialized supports of the bridge. In written form we enhanced the project’s graphic schematic-description, pointing out the possible final solutions for the idea. We thought of a single fully-equipped bike and corresponding biker that move virtually, as in a movie film held in front of our eyes; we also thought of a nuclear family having fun on their bikes. Options for sizes and materials were presented as well. We were told that the Commission liked the project a lot, but it refused to choose it considering that it was a fact that bikes, even though they were thought to be fake, were going to be stolen.

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300. North-west view

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Project for "ยกAjรก!", a Science Museum for Children, Guayaquil 2001

301, 302. Early studies

with Manolo Cevallos

The project called for the construction a multi-use complex in an area of virgin land situated over the superior contours of a double-peak hill, looking north toward a future artificial lake, and higher contours to the south. The different functions of the complex are organized within the following components: the east building contains the shops, the multimedia labs, the game-exhibit halls, and a cafeteria; the west compound holds the dome for educational shows, the administrative building, the Extreme Screen Theater, the general cafeteria and hall for social events. The components irradiate from the center, the south plaza, through a grid of concentric circles. To be more precise, this center is the center of a quiet-water-fountain built in gray granite resembling the waterand-granite mirrors used by pre-hispanic Inca astronomers for star observation. As a foundation symbol, this fountain occupies the higher of the site peaks. The south plaza functions as the main entrance hall to the east building and the administrative building.

It is conected to an ample wooddeck crown with a large pergola that links this plaza to the dome. A north plaza commands the sight towards the lake. A system of ramps, tree-filled pedestrian avenues and porticoed walkways leads the visitors through the exterior surroundings of the complex, which include the hill's slopes and the lake. Design decisions concerning the site plan adapt the components to the topography, avoiding massive earthworks that would mean a loss of natural drama and landscape vigor. The architecture recalls well tested elements from Guayaquil's vernacular tradition; the need for shadow, breeze, bold color and concise ornament finds expression in the membrane covering the south plaza, the generous galleries bordering the east and administrative buildings, the pergola over the wood deck, the trellis protecting the east building's facades and galleries, the green marble diamonds on the brick spandrels around the north plaza, the colored metal-cladvaulted game-exhibit halls, galleries and lanterns.

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303. Plan

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304. Southwest aerial view 305. Northeast aerial view 306. South square, deatil view to north terrace

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307. South square, aerial view 308. South square, detail view from south

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309. The great pergola terrace 310. The exhibitions pavillion

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311. Panoramic view from the artificial lake

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Project for the Speculative Housing Market, "Portofino," Guayaquil

312. Plans, prototype one

with Aurelio Molina

2003 A local developer company called for design entries for a re-launched urban complex whose building program was interrupted by a severe financial crisis which lasted about three years. Their bill of conditions specified the area parameter, 160 square meters, as well as matters of style and materials. What they wanted fitted perfectly in the range of the roughly understandable and acceptable for themselves and their potential clients. It was about a standard building type not only in the market but also in the high middle class culture. Beyond that, no concern was established for compositional quality or proper detailing. Two prototypes were developed as variations on the same theme. Without contradicting the design outline, we chose to evade the excess of style and the grotesque and disassembled classical arrangements so typical of our middle class' grandeur. Instead, we played with proportioning the whole and the parts; with clean and moderate contrasts between elements such as the entry, windows, doors, walls, roofs and floor levels, accordingly

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313 - 316. Elevations, prototype one

with a hierarchy of colors, moldings, shapes, scale and materials. To counter balance a no-land sense of style we discretely inserted formal patterns characteristic of the urban vernacular esthetic of the city (Guayaquil). The cornice projection size and detailing, the type and placement of moldings, the color scheme, by the way, derive from urban vernacular sources which have shown to be consistent expressions from the tropical temperament and good adaptations to climate. The prototypes share a standard layout of areas. The public and service areas occupy the ground floor, while bedrooms are tightly organized on the first floor. Careful attention was granted to interior dimensioning and circulation to avoid failures of elemental design criteria. Proper, even generous, fenestration for natural lighting and ventilation was provided on the verge of budget constrains.

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317 - 318. General views, prototype one

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319. Plans, prototype two

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320 - 323. Elevations, prototype two

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324 - 325. General views, prototype two

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Color Styling for Buildings' Street Elevations, Urban Renewal Works in Down Town Guayaquil, with Aurelio Molina and César Mosquera

2003 The plan for color styling of buildings´ street elevations in down town Guayaquil was made public in August 2001. The project was co-managed by the Malecón 2000 Foundation and the Guayaquil Siglo XXI Foundation as a City Council authority branch. These works were framed by a wider urban renewal plan including infrastructure updating, urban furniture, and signage and pavement renovation. Color works started by commissioning the required color schemes designs to a prestigious local Graphic Design office. In following stages designs were assigned to various local architects. It is very important to remark that, historically, it was the very first time that such a plan of color works was undertaken by the city. The focusing on the whole and the involvement of design professionals in the color treatment of building compounds was a new phenomenon in the city. Our area of intervention consisted of several continuous blocks along three busy streets where buildings different in style, scale and epoch coexist one close to another. Additionally, another five sparse buildings around were added to the job. In defining color schemes we followed standard theoretical clues for color combination proper from contemporary color

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326. A sample facade on 1406 Malecon Simon Bolivar Street, before intervention 327. Color schematic study

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328. The design document, color view, color codes and application specifications 329. Building facade after intervention

theory, as well as color guidelines suggested by what we considered like Guayaquil down town color temperament. We also kept in line form composition concepts with the architectural identity of building elements to avoid the graphic transfiguration of those elements occurred in the early plan stages. We mean buildings treated graphically non architecturally, e.g. a cornice painted in a very dark blue which annuls the play of shades and shadows this cornice is called to produce under sunlight to reveal its shape and realize its architectural identity. Accordingly, concepts of, color triads, analogous colors, complementary opposite colors, split complementary colors, neutral colors, etcetera, were followed to set formal rhythms, emphasis, balance, unity in the street faรงade of buildings. An outstanding cultural characteristic in color use in the city is the individualistic approach. Each citizen wants his property to look chromatically different from others. Another identifying quality is the distribution of color accordingly with its value (dark and light) in characteristic schemes to define masonry wainscots, frames, moldings, figures. We have assumed these qualities in our work (consisting in forty buildings) considering them in positive terms.

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330. A sample facade on 116 Aguirre Street, before intervention 331. Color schematic study

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332. The design document 333. Building facade after intervention

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Another previous and actual buildings' color schemes samples 334 - 335. Building on 418 Pichincha Street 336 - 337. Building on 318 Aguirre Street

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338 - 339. Building on 329 Chile Street

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340 - 341. Building on 326 Chile Street

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342 - 343. Building on 1215 Boyaca Street 344 - 345. Building on 1713 Boyaca Street

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Project for an Office Pavilion, Industrial district, Guayaquil 2010

Inside a busy and crowded mechanical workshop devoted to large size trucks exhibition and maintenance, a small office pavilion claimed for enlargement, with no other available space than the one over its actual imprint, and with almost no chance for interrupting bureaucrat labor. Based on these parameters, a sort of pile-dwelling was not an option but a by force decision that met all the basic project conditions. Accordingly, the original one floor pavilion was flanked by steel columns that allowed the new upper floor to bridge over it, including its original roof. Steel components were decided for the structure, stairs, ceiling, brise-soleils, roof and its parapet-screen; reinforced concrete over steel panel was specified for the floor; for walls, it was chosen rigid foam with concrete stucco both sides; and for the openings the choice was, aluminum and glass sliding windows, medium density board for interior doors, and tempered glass with stainless steel hardware for the main entry door. With no room for an elevator, a three flights stair was needed to link first and second floor levels, fact that was assumed as an opportunity to endow interior space with a slight relieving from the neatness and starkness pervading the whole environment; consequently, treads were specified in solid teak wood over steel plate; balusters were specified in steel plate; and stainless steel pipe was selected for the handrail. Large windows allow daylight to flow through this stair.

326. Axonometric, northwest view 327. Axonometric, southwest view

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328. First floor plan 329. Ground floor plan

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330. Stair, axonometric 331. Stair, steps and balausters detail

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Project for a Condominium Apartment Playas 2011

332. West view

One hundred kilometers south west from Guayaquil is the seaside city of Playas. With around 30.000 inhabitants, this settlement extends along 14 Km of Pacific Ocean beach. Recognized by its healthy climate and slow pace day to day, the city has attracted a new wave of Real Estate developments, with options varying from single family housing to apartment buildings. With just a narrow row of private houses between the beach and its site, this building is two walking minutes from the beach. Ranging from 70 to 80 sq.-m, a total of six apartments occupy the first three levels, while a fourth level is dedicated to a gardened terrace for community use, regarding the panoramic views and amusements expected from seaside moments like outdoor grilling and parties, among others. A symmetric and formally concise composition stems from the 12 x 24 meters dividing lot-site the building occupies, and from the architectural program and municipal regulations observed. Each apartment is allowed a panoramic window facing in the ocean direction, and serving an open area where living room, dining and kitchen get discretely and closely defined.

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333. Aerial southeast view

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334. Terrace plan 335. First and second floor plan

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Published writings

"La (Gran) Casa Naca en el reino de lo suced· neo." Expreso de Guayaquil, 2 May 2004, cultura 25. "DiseÒos crom· ticos para fachadas en el casco comercial de Guayaquil." DOMUS, revista tÈcnica de construcciÛn a nivel nacional, March/April 2004, 8-9. "La Nueva Biblioteca Central de Denver." DOMUS, revista tÈcnica de construcciÛn a nivel nacional, July/August 2003, 20-21. "CiclovÌa, proyecto para una instalaciÛn en un paso a desnivel en Guayaquil." DOMUS, revista tÈcnica de construcciÛn a nivel nacional, May/June 2003, 10-11. "La Casa de la Hija de Nadie, una InstalaciÛn ArquitectÛnica." DOMUS, revista tÈcnica de construcciÛn a nivel nacional, January/February 2003, 32-33. "Gato Encerrado, una InstalaciÛn ArquitectÛnica." DOMUS, revista tÈcnica de construcciÛn a nivel nacional, September/October 2002, 44-45.

"El Clasicismo en el barrio." DOMUS, revista tÈcnica de construcciÛn a nivel nacional, May/June 2002, 18-19. "ComposiciÛn por restricciones." DOMUS, revista tÈcnica de construcciÛn a nivel nacional, March/April 2002, 14-15. "Modelos conceptuales." DOMUS, revista tÈcnica de construcciÛn a nivel nacional, January/February 2002, 18-19. "Arquitectura de elocuencia y oficio." Revista Vistazo, 24 July 1999, Bienes y Detalles. "Lo preciso de lo impreciso o la estÈtica del ya t˙ vez." El TelÈgrafo, 28 February 1993, Matapalo 1. "Carmen V· scones y sus puzzle/fabulaciones." El TelÈgrafo, 8 November 1992, Matapalo 3. "Silla para hablar g¸ evadas en bac· n." TRAMA, revista de Arquitectura, November 1992, 41-43.

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"The Guayamican Torombolican Classicism." AUC 4/5, revista de la Facultad de Arquitectura de la Universidad CatÛlica de Santiago de Guayaquil, June 1992, 42-45. "Jorge Velarde o (øuna sonrisa de?)." Palabra Suelta, revista de cultura, December 1991, 55. "Por las im· genes del tiempo." Palabra Suelta, revista de cultura, November 1991, 45. "La educaciÛn en los tiempos de la cÛlera: La Escuela de Don Eloy." (with Fernando Artieda) Revista Diners, March 1990, 62-66. "Superm· n el peatÛn del futuro." In the Albert Just "Carfaces" exhibition brochure, H2O Gallery, Barcelona, Spain, December 1989.

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"El acento de la vanidad." Revista Diners, April 1989, 53-56. "Mercados y espÌritu de lugar." El TelÈgrafo, 8 January 1989, Matapalo 6. "Las nobles causas no son pretexto." El TelÈgrafo, 4 December 1988, Matapalo 3. "Bach, Mozart y los panas de la esquina." El TelÈgrafo, 21 August 1988, Matapalo 4-5. "Los beauty in pink y los ritos intocables." Palabra Suelta, revista de cultura, May 1988, 38-39. "PolÌticas sobre Centros HistÛricos." TRAMA, revista de Arquitectura, March 1988, 64-65.

"La Coca Cola House." Revista Diners, October 1989, 66-70.

"El ever chinaco guayaco y sus alrededores cultos." Palabra Suelta, revista de cultura, March 1987, 28-31.

"Patrimonio ArquitectÛnico y Urbano de Guayaquil, un libro para comenzar." El TelÈgrafo, 16 July 1989, Matapalo 9.

"El Greco Romano Guayaco." TRAMA, revista de Arquitectura, October 1986, 71-74.


Biographical notes

1957 Born in Guayaquil (Ecuador, South America), 26 September Primary and Secondary school in Guayaquil

1994 Master of Science in Architecture Degree with a Major in Architecture, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte

1976-82 Studies at the Facultad de Arquitectura, Universidad CatÛlica de Santiago de Guayaquil (School of Architecture, Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil)

1995-96 Teaching at Jefferson University of Guayaquil

1985 Beginning of professional activity 1987 Architect Diploma from the Facultad de Arquitectura, Universidad CatÛlica de Santiago de Guayaquil (School of Architecture, Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil) 1990 Guest lecturer, VII Bienal de Arquitectura de Quito (VII Quito Biennial of Architecture) Honorific Mention for K-Grade School Building from the Guayaquil City Council Annual Awards 1992 Special Mention for Chair Design from R&B Mobiliario and FundaciÛn TRAMA

1996 Guest lecturer, 8 Congreso Latinoamericano de DiseÒo (8th Latin-American Design Congress) 1998 Seminar professor at the Facultad de Arquitectura, Universidad CatÛlica de Santiago de Guayaquil (School of Architecture, Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil) 1999 Thesis work consultant at Jefferson University of Guayaquil Guest lecturer, Colegio de Arquitectos del Guayas (Guayas Province Board of Architects) 2002 Guest lecturer, FundaciÛn de Arquitectos de la Universidad CatÛlica de Santiago de Guayaquil (The Catholic University of Santiago de Guayaquil Architects Foundation) Mention, Essay Category, XIII Bienal de Arquitectura de Quito (XIII Quito Biennial of Architecture)

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