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The project is based on the generosity of the family to donate the property to the city to equip the neighborhood with this equipment and an ancestral garden park for everyone to enjoy. The result is the democratization of private green, abundant in our South American cities.

The new and rehabilitated infrastructure, a tribute from the family and the Municipality of Quito to the literary prestige Benjamín Carrión, one of the most important writers and intellectuals in Ecuador. His great interest and contribution to science, letters and cultural artistic development of the country have made his name resonate constantly when talking about these issues. The project provides a program focused on the cultural and leisure development of young people.

The Re-functionalization design project of the House of Benjamín Carrión is characterized by delivering this property to the city, recovering an ancestral Quito garden that coexisted with the House of the Carrión Family since its origin, specifically in the Bellavista sector, and protects modern architectural heritage. The proposal seeks to solve their new needs for their change of use to a Cultural Center, through interventions with transparent elements that are correctly related to the immediate environment, acting with deep respect towards the existing heritage house.

The house is located on a large 2200m2 lot, which has remained almost intact over time, resisting the attacks of real estate speculators for decades. It is located in one of the sectors with the highest capital gains in the city, which is why it has become a green oasis between large towers that occupy all of its lots.

For the design team, it was a priority to maintain the garden, without touching the large trees of typical species of the Quito landscape.

The intervention consists of two pieces that the program required: A new entrance hall that overlooks the access axis from the street, which almost without touching the existing house, connects it by means of two bridges in an extremely respectful way, solving the circulation system of the new program with only two incisions.

The new hall is a translucent prism nine meters high, covered by a second skin of steel slats that provide natural light to the distributor, generating interesting effects inside during the sun's path.

The second room is a multipurpose room, which, at the request of the administration, needed to function independently of the House. The only ford in the garden where there were no trees to place the piece was sought, taking that garden to an upper layer that connects with the patios of the House by means of a bridge, allowing to approach the top of a large Guabo that covers with shade this green terrace.  

This volume is hidden in the natural topography of the lot, and with its transparent skin it allows a total connection of the user with the project's gardens.

The Original House was fully restored, maintaining its essence without changing its distribution, adapting the existing spaces to the new use.