Apartment TS1

Location: Quito, Ecuador 0° 11’ 16” S – 78° 26’ 9” W

Area of intervention: 350 m2

Status of work: completed in 2014

Renovation of a residential apartment inside a 1980’s mid-rise building. The apartment key location overlooks Quito and its valleys. The main objective of the renovation is to transform the current apartment into a more dynamic and social one. Kitchen, master bathroom, foyer, and cabinetry were among the areas that underwent major transformations. The rest of the areas underwent an aesthetical transformation that attempts to highlight the materials, the palette and the skills of local artisans. Maintaining the existing chanul wood floor was the point of departure of our design process. Chanul is a prime hardwood specie in Ecuador. We decided to keep 97% of the original flooring by only giving it a refinishing maintenance with water based products. A new and wider chanul floor was also selected to replace the existing carpet in all the bedrooms and circulation areas of the apartment. The warm tone of chanul set up the palette for the apartment and especially for the wood veneering work done to all cabinetry, doors, and details in the apartment. A different wood specie, seique, was used for veneering. The grainy texture of this specie gives a unique finish and texture to every item. A more functional kitchen became integrated to the social areas through a sliding door made of salvaged pieces of the existing chanul floor. The woodwork and metalwork in the apartment were done by artisans, mostly on site. A predominantly white toned kitchen was redesigned as a social daily space, replacing a more rigid and service oriented existing kitchen. The tones of the floor and cabinetry seek harmony with the rest of the apartment, from the colorful wallpaper on the foyer to the Peruvian travertine on the chimney.