THE SITE: Periphery, mountain topography — far away yet close.
We are located on the hillside of Cerro Auqui, which borders the city of Quito. A river separates this location from the city. However, downtown is only a 20-minute drive away.
Despite its proximity to the city, the site retains a rural character and maintains an important visual relationship with Quito, making the project's orientation evident.
The moderately sloping terrain is surrounded by nature, including eucalyptus trees, pines, orchards, and animals. For this reason, the project faces the views and adapts to the rugged topography with a series of levels.
THE STRENGTH OF THE MATERIAL
Brick was chosen as the material for this project due to its high thermal inertia. This enables thermal comfort inside the building despite temperature variations outside.
Additionally, the goal is to take full advantage of the material's structural capabilities to meet all of the project's requirements. This solves the issues of the vertical and horizontal boundaries, structure, and roof. The vertical elements are solved with wide load-bearing brick walls, which provide mass for thermal comfort inside. A lowered vault is used for the roof; this geometry allows a horizontal element to be constructed with brick. However, since the project is in a seismic zone, the vault is reinforced with a 3-cm-thick reinforced concrete layer. This results in a lightweight roof with a large surface area. This construction system minimizes the use of concrete and steel.
THE FIRST HABITAT, A LARGE BREAD OVEN
The dwelling must be cozy and comfortable, with a minimal footprint of 48 m², as it will undergo a future construction phase. These spaces will be adapted for new uses.
The construction system results in a homogeneous envelope that allows for flexibility in how the interior space is used and appropriated.
The three interior levels allow for the distribution of spaces, including the entrance/bathroom, living room/dining room/kitchen, and bedroom/study. These spaces maintain a direct relationship with the city and countryside views.
Thus, the architecture is resolved as a large bread oven sitting on the mountain, lit according to the area in use.
The Bread Oven was conceived as a progressive dwelling. In its first phase, it occupied 40% of the final area and provided a home with the main living spaces. From the beginning, connections and reorganization of spaces were planned for the next phase. This phased development enabled the initial dwelling to be inhabited, allowing the intended use of each space, the activities to be carried out, and personal needs to be identified. This process also allowed the proposal for the second stage to be refined.
The homogeneous brick envelope is replicated to allow for reorganization of spaces and creation of new necessary spaces.
On the ground floor of the new phase, the dining room is next to the workshop/laundry room, now an interior space. A sliding wooden and fabric screen separates these two areas and allows them to be connected when necessary.
A new platform emerges from the living room with a small slope that approaches the front garden, maintaining a spatial connection with the dining room. This space is anomalous in the brick envelope because it extends, like an attached box, toward the garden. The new living room frees up the space where it was located in the initial phase, allowing the kitchen to expand.
On the upper floor of the new addition, there are two bedrooms. The bedroom from the first phase has been replaced by a study, library, and television room.
From the beginning, a cut was planned in the wall separating the two construction phases on both floors to allow for connection between the two stages. The cut was made as wide as possible to avoid altering the load-bearing brick wall's functionality.
During the first phase, the openings were covered with fiber cement sheets that could be easily removed and were used for storage. In the new stage, the fiber cement sheets were removed on both floors to allow free movement on the ground floor. On the upper floor, the same sheets were used to create double access perpendicular to the wall for the two bedrooms. The master bedroom is located at the front and has city views. At the rear, the space between the load-bearing walls is utilized to create a second bedroom and a full bathroom connected to the master bedroom.
The modifications to the original space are minimal and limited to incorporating new furniture, which allows the space to be occupied during construction of the next phase.
