“Each and every of our projects responds to different needs, but they all share the same fundamental goal: to optimize resources”. Through these words the founders of Rama Estudio, a promising collective based in Quito, Ecuador, witness their engagement in investigating one of the crucial topics of contemporary architecture design.

The country house that they recently completed in Lasso, in the rural Cotopaxi province, is a valuable experimentation on the principle of the best result achieved through the minimum waste, in many respects. The building’s bearing structures – massive 40-centimeters-thick walls made of rammed earth blocks – as well as the movable partitions created as sequences of rotating wooden panels, are constructed with traditional materials and techniques, by locally-based craftsmen. 

The spatial constraint produced by the solid buttresses, as large as 80 centimeters, is turned into a potential: the kitchen, bunk beds, libraries and wardrobes are in-built inside these enclosed alcoves, leaving uninterrupted galleries to cross the building from end to end. To conclude, the pisé walls, as well as the adjustable boards, relate to the weather conditions: the former screen the house from the prevailing winds, whereas the latter allow to adjust natural ventilation to taste.

An oversized, vernacular double-pitched roof, leaning on large-scale trusses, is the airy canopy which protects the fluid spaces of the house, centered around the lowered chimney room, and at the same time anxious to open up towards the surrounding landscape.