2014-03-24

Reflections on Quito

Last week I traveled with a group of Historic Preservation graduate students to Ecuador for an urban heritage consulting opportunity.  As part of our Urban Regeneration in the Americas prompt, we sought to address public housing in the Historic Center of Quito.  As a city steeped in history, Quito dates back to 1534 when Spaniards settled atop a pre-Colombian settlement at the base of Mt. Pinchinca (a large volcano in the Andes).  However, over the past 480 years the contemporary city of Quito has grown far beyond its colonial roots, leaving behind many vacant buildings on the slopes of Pinchincha, but not many ideas for how to adaptively reuse them.


Our challenge was to propose two scales of housing development in the Historic Center-- the microscopic scale involves a single building and the macroscopic scale involves an entire block.


The hilly terrain and wide range of land
use makes for a challenging urban site

Horizontal vs. Vertical property consolidation


Our challenge was to propose two scales of housing development in the Historic Center-- the microscopic scale involves a single building and the macroscopic scale involves an entire block.