Citizen Laboratory
Kay Pacha Park - Equinoctial Strip
The project is located in "Middle of the World City", Ecuador. The location is an iconic place in the world with approximately 400 thousand visitors per year. The population of the surrounding area, which adds up to 32 thousand inhabitants, unfortunately lacks facilities since most of the resources are directed to tourism. In order to promote the personal development of the members of this community, we propose improvements in the education and professional training team. Research has revealed that more than 50% of the population is under the age of 18, but the area currently does not include areas for cultural and intellectual development outside of schools. Furthermore, more than 30% of the population currently faces unemployment.
As such, the goal is to create a business training center that can improve the overall quality of life, while maintaining a connection with cultural elements in the area, such as the Monument to the Ecuador and the Ecuador line itself, the movement of the sun. and visuals aimed at geographic landmarks.
The proposal includes an architectural detail based on pure forms: discreet on the outside but full of surprise and movement on the inside, being a nod to the environment where it is located.
The architectural implementation corresponds to the near and far external conditions in the landscape, rather than just the general urban structure and the connections with other neighboring structures. This project begins in a process of addition and not of subtraction. It brings together a series of obvious singularities (related to the environment) to produce a totality not evident in the face of an excessive expansion of elements.
All this constitutes a strategy to create a connection with the area through a constant circulation through it (related to the Equator Line). There are, of course, views of urban objects (like the Middle of the World Monument) but, at the same time, the real determinants are larger, timeless and universal objects, like the sunrise and sunset points over the hills, at 360 degrees. View of the sky, and the geographic diversity of the city and its surroundings.
The structure includes two parts: a substructure that employs foundation beams chosen due to the low bearing capacity of the soil in the area; and a superstructure that uses steel beams and columns, since these metallic elements will provide great flexibility and versatility for the construction of spaces of up to four heights.
Considering that the area is prone to telluric activity, shear walls were chosen for stairs and elevators. Furthermore, since most of the buildings would be at least partially underground, retaining walls with a concrete finish were used to ensure the safety of the building against earth pressure. They can also be considered aesthetic elements
The first Biblio-Lab block is where knowing and working is developed thanks to the resources of the population and the ancestral knowledge of the territory, a library which has at its first level an auditorium, commercial spaces, and attention centers for the Username.
On the upper floors there are levels where there are books and documents of the ancestral knowledge of our country and the community. This is to transmit this knowledge to both residents and tourists seeking new experiences within the parish.
The library is connected to the entrepreneurship center, a laboratory of trades where the community is taught, but in turn the community proposes different projects, the first floors focus on agricultural workshops and caring for the environment, on the second level there is a medical center and different workshops on body care and on the top floor there is a radio station and different workshops on the dissemination of knowledge and the tourism potential of the sector
Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador.
Titling project.
Student: Byron Cadena.
Tutor: Manuel Uribe.
September 2017. Middle of the World City, Quito, Ecuador.