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LA TOLITA WORKSHOP

A four-day international collaboration to design and build vertical garden prototypes for Señora Elvira.

Students and faculty from the Universidad de las Americas (UDLA) and UDBS collaborated with local settlement farmer Señora Elvira on the development of prototypes for no-cost vertical gardening strategies predicated on the use of waste material. The workshop was run during the XX Pan American Bienal de Arquitectura, and feeds into a larger research project and community based design effort led by UDLA in Guapulo, a neighborhood in Northern Quito, Equador.

Señora Elvira’s home is located adjacent to her organic garden which she farms independently. She grows a wide variety of vegetables from cabbage and lettuce to tomatoes and potatoes with her own developed system of agriculture and irrigation. The vertical garden prototypes were to be implemented on the facade of Señora Elvira’s house and eventually other houses in La Lolita.

UDBS and UDLA students were divided into groups of four or five and each group was assigned a different set of recycled materials, such as PVC pipes, plastic bottles, screws and nails. The designs explored seated, suspended, and anchored structure structural strategies using the repurposed materials. Despite the Spanish/English language barrier, team members focused on sketching and the construction process to communicate ideas. UDLA will take these prototypes and advance their development with members of the La Tolita community.  

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