Totora’s cube

Designed Archquid in San Luis de Otavalo, Ecuador, the pavilion can be considered as an experiential catalogue of the different patterns worked by local artisans.

This project was a chance to conduct a series of experiments. Mostly around the different possibilities of “totora” as a building material. So a certain research and various tests took place before Archquid decided to build this specific structure. Those tests were mainly focused on the structural performance of material, its capacity to endure the strong equatorial sun and of course its expressive possibilities. It is clearly experimental, and even if it has a function (it works as a pavilion intended for the promotion of local handicrafts), it is flexible enough to allow different configurations and programs.

It is a definable object: its morphology and materiality make evident its quality as an object that are well beyond the limits of the idea of “architectural program”. The cube, with nine panels in each side, forms what it can be considered as an experiential catalogue of the different patterns worked by local artisans. The development of this project, a result of communitarian work, enabled in a notorious way, to stimulate and reinforce the locals’ identity.

A wooden structure simply leans on a concrete slab where the cube stays pinned by its own weight. A secondary structure allows the collocation of the totora panels. It was proposed, from the start, to consider this project as a living structure that allows changes, replacements, different configurations and combinations with other cubes. The cube, finally, establishes itself as a milestone highly visible from a very busy way, in a particular geographical context (a lake and a volcano) and a specific sociocultural area, which generates a center of identity, reunion and participation.

Archquid, think-act tank