BIG completed in Quito – the capital of Ecuador – IQON, the first of a pair of towers that rise above the large park La Carolina. With 131 meters high, the 33-story project becomes the tallest building in the city.

Quito’s skyline started to rise in 2015, thanks to the relaxation of height limits – which moved from 15 to 40 stories – after the relocation of the international airport outside the city’s boundaries.  Uribe Schwarzkopf, IQON’s developer, has been leading the boom in skyscrapers with its vision of “healthy urbanism”, collaborating with architects like BIG, Moshe Safdie, Carlos Zapata, Jean Nouvel, Arquitectonica, and MAD.

Located on an L-shaped site, IQON bends from north to south and houses 220 luxury apartments that overlook the city from different angles, while the east facade houses offices. The jagged exoskeleton, made from concrete blocks stacked on top of each other, gives rise to a myriad of corners and crevices that have been converted into balconies and terraces. To soften this concrete structure, BIG introduced a so-called “urban tree farm”, a selection of medium-sized trees and shrubs chosen within the vast biodiversity of Ecuador, which will then be replanted within the park when their size increases.