JOSE MARÍA SÁEZ
Spanish architect who lives in Ecuador since 1994. Here he teaches at Universidad Católica of Quito. In 2006 he won the National Prize of Architecture drawing from BAQ (Biennal of Architecture of Quito) for the project of the house Pentimento, and in 2012 he won again this prize with the house Los Algarrobos. Pentimento house also won the Prize for the Best Young Project in the VI BIAU (Biennal Ibero-American of Architecture and Urbanism) in Lisbon in 2008. From his rehabilitation work it stands out the house Sáez-Moreira and the house San Juan, selected work for VII BIAU. Now he's a collaborator with BCNecologia in urban ecology projects for the historical centre of Quito and he's doing research in sustainability and recycling solutions.
AL BORDE
AL BORDE started in 2007 in Quito - Ecuador. The team is David Barragán, Pascual Gangotena, Marialuisa Borja and Esteban Benavides. AL BORDE had given conferences and workshops in a national and international level.
AL BORDE is a collaborative and experimental studio which is focused in solving real needs with the existing resources - material and social resources. Their work is made out of identifying and understanding the needs with a holistic perspective. This way of thinking drove them to interdisciplinary collaborations with musicians, artists, actors, designers, advertisers, etc. The strength of their constructions is grounded in the rigour of the project. These projects aim to combine traditional construction systems with contemporary ones without forgetting the importance of managing social and communitarian energies.
JAVIER MERA
Ecuadorian carpenter (Aalto University, Finland 2015) - architect (PUCE 2011). His thesis won the golden medal in BAQ 2010. He also won the National Prize for Landscape Design, awarded by BAQ in 2014 for his project Mirador Quilotoa. In 2015 he won the second place in Project of the Year Plataforma de Arquitectura 2015 for Mirador en Quilotoa Shalalá. In 2017 together with his group of students from Wood Program in Finland 2014-2015 he won the first place in the contest "World Architecture News" wood awards of EEUU for the project SAIE Pavilion. Now he's working for WUK and ENOBRA where he's searching to develop wood technologies from architecture to industrial design.
EL SINDICATO
El Sindicato begins in September 2014. It comes out of the gathering of working forces as a way of facing the "employer-employee" way of working. We stop working for other people and we have taken the decision of building our own office and doing our own projects. It is made by Zavier Duque, Nicolás Viteri and Maria Reinoso. We are a collaborative experimental group in which through architectural drawing and construction we want to do what we like to do, inside and outside of architecture. We see architecture as something that one learns by doing. As so, we keep searching for creating teaching and learning spaces which allow people to develop their capacities and to generate knowledge.
REM
Rem is a space of research, experiment and creation with drawing, communication and art. It is made by Sergio Silva, Aquiles Jarrín, Karina Barragán and Irving Ramó. A multidisciplinary team who have been developing works related with developing systems of visual identity, industrial design, communication strategies, artistic interventions and others. All the projects start with a research processes, made with our own methodologies, which aim to deeply question the projects we develop in order to communicate their essence in the more precise way as possible. Analogic technics are used as a base to explore media tools in order to create a bigger range of possibilities for the project.
SANTIAGO GRANDA
Santiago Granda is a member of ESE Colectivo Architects, an architecture studio funded in 2012 in Quito-Ecuador. This studio focuses in experimentation with materials and methodologies, as well as empirical architectural production, a variety of contexts and users of the space. The work of this studio has been published in various magazines and websites specialized in architecture. When it comes to academic work, Santiago focuses his research in the protection of patrimony, with emphasis in public residency in historical centers as well as its vulnerability to natural and human factors. Santiago is part od ENOBRA as academic director, in a search for spaces of continuous and collaborative learning.
