This week, Bjarke Ingels Group announced its latest project in Quito, Ecuador. Titled EPIQ, the mixed-use residential and commercial building will be a new "vertical city" in Quito's green neighborhood of Parque La Carolina.

Driven by sustainable design principles, BIG strives to incorporate a diverse collection of eco-friendly solutions within the development. From a greywater treatment plant to re-using rainwater, to recycled building materials and a climate-conscious structural design, BIG aims to utilize these initiatives to aid the city and its inhabitants.
BIG’s EPIQ building, on the edge of La Carolina park in Quito, Ecuador brings the park’s many plant species into the building to create a truly green community with an abundance of light and landscape.

Aiming to create a 'tridimensional community', building volumes in different sizes offer the residents and their families a variety of openings, passages, parks and pockets for play, social life, work and enjoyment.
 

Description of project by BIG

With BIG’s first building IQON under construction in Ecuador, BIG and Uribe & Schwarzkopf once again join forces to bring a vertical neighborhood to Quito, the greenest capital in South America. Situated on the edge of La Carolina park, the interlocking 24-story building brings the park’s many plant species into the building to create a truly green community with an abundance of light and landscape at various levels.

The historical center of Quito with its red herringbone sidewalks is a bombardment of forms, geometry, typography and color. At the south tip of La Carolina park, our aim is to create a three dimensional community: a constellation of building volumes in different sizes that form a holistic whole, offering the residents and their families a variety of sun-filled openings, passages, parks and pockets for play, social life, work and enjoyment.


“As architects we are often a little afraid to play with color – in Quito we thought it could be interesting to use color to accentuate the different building blocks and give each volume its own shade of red. IQON was our first collaboration with U&S and also our first project in Latin America. Joining forces on our second project, one can only begin to imagine the level we could take it to by continuing this inspiring collaboration.”

Bjarke Ingels, Founder & Creative Director, BIG-Bjarke Ingels Group.

 

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Bjarke Ingels (born in Copenhagen, in 1974) studied architecture at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen and the School of Architecture of Barcelona, ​​obtaining his degree as an architect in 1998. He is the founder of the BIG architecture studio - (Bjarke Ingels Group), a studio founded in 2005, after co-founding PLOT Architects in 2001 with his former partner Julien de Smedt, whom he met while working at the prestigious OMA studio in Rotterdam.

Bjarke has designed and completed award-winning buildings worldwide, and currently, his studio is based with venues in Copenhagen and New York. His projects include The Mountain, a residential complex in Copenhagen, and the innovative Danish Maritime Museum in Elsinore.

With the PLOT study, he won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale in 2004, and with BIG he has received numerous awards such as the ULI Award for Excellence in 2009. Other prizes are the Culture Prize of the Crown Prince of Denmark in 2011; Along with his architectural practice, Bjarke has taught at Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University and Rice University and is an honorary professor at the Royal Academy of Arts, School of Architecture in Copenhagen.

In 2018, Bjarke received the Knight's Cross of the Order of Dannebrog granted by Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II. He is a frequent public speaker and continues to give lectures at places such as TED, WIRED, AMCHAM, 10 Downing Street or the World Economic Forum. In 2018, Bjarke was appointed Chief Architectural Advisor by WeWork to advise and develop the design vision and language of the company for buildings, campuses and neighborhoods around the world.

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Published on: May 4, 2019
Cite: "EPIQ. A rose-colored building in Quito with spaces for garden terraces by BIG and Uribe & Schwarzkopf" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/epiq-a-rose-colored-building-quito-spaces-garden-terraces-big-and-uribe-schwarzkopf> ISSN 1139-6415
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