Liste des projets

carla CHAVEZ et Carolina RODAS Ramaestudio

  • Site : www.ramaestudioec.com
  • Adresse : Francisco Hernandez de Giron N 35-66 y Av. República EC170134 Rumipamba
“Rama is an architecture studio, design, and construction that focuses on the optimization of resources through experimentation. This group is interested in processes that strengthen the design and production with coherence to the needs, the place, its memory, and the environment. Scales of work, which range from the territory to the object, are related to achieve an integral vision that objectively responds to social, cultural, and spatial issues. The studio has been invited to give lectures and workshops in different universities of Ecuador and has been awarded with the first national award in the Pan-American Biennial of Architecture of Quito (2014), in the category of rehabilitation and recycling. Our work has been published in different magazines and digital platforms, worldwide. Also, the studio has been selected nationally for the Ibero-American Biennial (BIAU), and as national representatives for the Biennial of Navarre - Spain. Most of our works are linked to architectural pieces in disuse or change of use. Also, we see great potential in what is already done and that through time has taken a different way and deserves being reformed because we are interested in using what is already and adapting to the present time, to new users or needs. A less invasive architecture that doesn’t start from scratch; with this vision, we have directed our response to spatial, social, and environmental problems. Each project has different priorities but has the same basis: OPTIMIZING resources. Starting from this idea, we have developed different constructive and furniture systems.”

PATIOS House

ANTECEDENT
The house is located in the province of Cotopaxi, in the area of Lasso. The land is part of the area of Ranchos San José in the middle of a rural environment. The order was a family house thought to enjoy the countryside, the sowing, the landscape, and the environment.

The proposal takes into account some conditions for its implementation and functioning. It was proposed a discrete architecture, almost imperceptible, thought from the raw and natural material. A heavy piece contained in the land and that almost disappear in the environment while being part of it.

THE IDEA
The house was thought as an element buried in the ground, discrete, and that do not represent an obstacle in the land. Solid stone walls are responsible for holding the inclined roof, which starts at the soil and raises containing vegetation as a continuation of the land. The stone walls in the form of “C”, displaced because of functional reasons, contains the private and functional areas. A stripe of services (bathrooms, storage warehouses, machinery rooms).
The social area articulates the two parts of the house through a transparent space, which physically and visually connects the two exterior courtyards. This central space is the meeting area of all spaces. A high, clear, and flexible space. This area of the house, defined as a social area, is where is located the main heat source, a hearth.

Each space of the house is confined through bahareque panels and a collaborating structure of solid eucalyptus wood. The bahareque improves the thermal and acoustic conditions of the house, while its texture and colour reinforce the intention of generating a discrete object in the landscape.
As for the roof, it develops in two areas over the stone walls. The roof plans are made up of metal trays of 10 m and 12 m in length and a thickness of 4mm, which allows us to contain 25cm of insulating stone material and soil for adequate growth of vegetation over the house. This roof also connects the two sides of the land, as it can be transited on it and pass from one side to the other.

LANDSCAPE
From the beginning, a discrete project was proposed, which compounds itself into the environment, which does not stand out on the ground, where the vegetation prevails over the built space. This landscape strategy is the one that governs the entire area, an idea that suggests that the landscape surrounds the house.
The vegetation starts at the ground and grows over the house through the roof, overflows and falls covering the stone walls. Between these two vegetable areas, two courtyards are opened, that generate green areas in the house through the glass screens. Courtyards that are raised with a lot of vegetation in the area, which invades and generates micro-landscapes that are seen only from the inside.

Illustration