Concurso Ikiam – Estudio A0

CONCURSO IKIAM

Tena, Ecuador

Architect Ikiam Cultural Center:
Estudio A0 – Ana María Durán Calisto y Jaskran Kalirai
Architect Ikiam Campus:
Del Hierro AU, Estudio A0, L + A Aquitectos
Collaborator Ikiam Cultura Center:
Esteban Cervantes y Nicolás Vivas
Landscape architect:
Daniel Sáenz

In 2013, the Ecuadorean government launched a national competition for the architectural design of a university campus to be located in the outskirts of Tena, in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Three small-scale offices, including our own, joined forces and won the competition with a master plan based on a modular and dynamic grid which made it possible to replicate a common element at diverse scales, in order to accommodate different programs and generate inner forested patios or “interior jungles.”

The government requested several changes to the original scheme, as its concern with maintenance costs and the need to produce impervious containers for the labs and library grew. The master plan was also subject to changes after a geological report mapping the alluvial plain was produced. The gridded scheme was abandoned in favor of a linear system of clusters that run parallel to the river, and which was generously suggested to us by German landscape architect Herbert Dreiseitl.

In order to facilitate group work, each one of the three offices developed one of the programmatic clusters. Estudio A0 designed the proposal for the Cultural Center, which included a library, an Amazonian culture archive, and diverse areas for learning, research and reading. The general scheme was inspired by spiraling library plans, Amazonian vernacular, and the work of Kengo Kuma, which is exemplary in its ability to interpret vernacular Japanese architecture in contemporary terms without losing one of the main strengths of tradition: its ability to engage landscape in its temporal and spatial dimensions.