围炉里避难所丨厄瓜多尔丨Baquio Arquitectura

Architects:Baquio Arquitectura

Area:36m²

Year:2024

Photographs:Punto Dos Studio

Lead Architect:Jose Granda

Design Team:María Fernanda Quinga, Alejandro Andrade, Emilio Castellanos, Luis Rosales, Ariel Sánchez, Julián Reyes, María Emilia Hinojosa

City:Nanegalito

Country:Ecuador

Text description provided by the architects. The place is a plot in the middle of the Chocó forest in Ecuador, which used to function as a warehouse and clandestine cockfights. First, this warehouse is rethought into a refuge for connection, awareness, and rehabilitation of the endemic forest. To achieve this sensitivity of the place, the concept of Irori was chosen as the guideline for design and emphasis on understanding the phenomenology in architecture, promoting spaces designed for actions and sensitivities rooted in collective memory.

Irori is a space used in traditional Japanese architecture to relax with family and close friends. It consists of a square hollow recessed in the ground where a fire is kept to warm and gather, it has a symbolic and cultural significance beyond its practical function, a place to gather, eat, and socialize.

With Irori as the rules of the design game, a journey of sensations is created until reaching the fire center. For this, three areas are proposed to stimulate the senses, smell, hearing, and sight, spaces divided with shoji panels that complement the transitions by playing with translucent and transparent elements.

The first sense, smell, is an area with furniture that invites you to take off your shoes and interact with a wooden piece of furniture with different local aromatic elements, the second sense, hearing, is the rest area with two folding beds and no visual interaction, only silhouettes can be perceived through the panels and you can hear the living nature. Finally, sight, two circular windows frame the natural surroundings, and the last panels open towards a view of the Chocó valley, thus completing the journey and proposing to inhabit from a more sensitive approach.

Finally, the shelter is set around a water mirror, allowing for an intimate connection with the rain and the surrounding environment. Additionally, it features an outdoor bath, where a sunken tub is nestled amidst a bamboo enclosure, providing a unique immersion experience in nature.

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