Correa+Fatehi | ODD designed a main access ramp to the house that adapted to the terrain, with adobe walls on the sides evoking the Andes Mountains. The house's façade is breathable and ventilated, allowing for greater control of light, temperature, and humidity. The house has three levels: basement, ground floor, and first floor.
The central elevator is the heart of the building, as its dimensions allow a room to be opened inside via a platform that rises and falls, creating a wide and open view of all the house's floors. In this way, the different levels are connected to each other, forming a unified whole. To achieve this, other resources were employed, such as double heights, riserless staircases, and an outdoor pool visible from the basement through a glass window.
A House in the Andes by Correa+Fatehi | ODD. Photography by Bicubik.
The façade is made of compacted adobe bricks extracted from the area, creating protrusions and recesses. In some areas, the bricks are arranged in a lattice pattern, giving the entire building a natural texture due to the resulting light and shadow. The house thus becomes a compact vertical monolith that blends seamlessly into the terrain.
Description of project by Correa+Fatehi | ODD
Set on the rural outskirts of Quito, A House in the Andes is a private residence that reconsiders the relationship between architecture, landscape, and material. Built from the soil it displaces, and embedded in sculpted terrain, the house unfolds across three levels, organized by a mobile platform. Its spatial clarity and porous earthen envelope reflect a grounded, responsive approach to contemporary dwelling.
Integration with terrain
Rising from sculpted mounds of native vegetation, the house is defined by a landscape strategy that echoes local topography and evokes a sense of highland wilderness. Processional access is carved into the mounds, revealing rammed earth walls and referencing the Chaquiñán—ancestral trails once used to navigate the rugged Andean geography. This approach choreographs movement through terrain, leading to a sunken threshold and immersive sectional sequence.
Sectional organization and mobility
From a distance, the house appears as a compact vertical monolith—discreet and grounded. Internally, the section is organized around a mobile platform that moves through all three levels. More than a means of circulation, it enables spatial flexibility—allowing programs to shift, merge, and reconfigure with time and use. At the second level, the architecture opens outward into a plateau of lawn and water—an interior pool and exterior garden divided by operable glazing, uniting landscape and interior in a single gesture.
Material grounded in place
Excavated earth is compacted into rammed earth walls and cast into a single custom module of adobe brick. This breathable, ventilated façade modulates temperature and light, casting intricate shadows that evolve with the sun. At night, it emits a soft, porous glow—transforming monolithic mass into atmosphere. By building with the very ground it stands on, the house becomes both a symbolic and material extension of the landscape.
Contextual resolution
Through the transformation of ground into form, A House in the Andes becomes inseparable from its site—defined by sectional depth, environmental sensitivity, and material continuity. Its architecture emerges not as an object imposed on the land, but as a spatial system attuned to its contours and conditions. Form, rhythm, and atmosphere are drawn directly from the landscape itself, producing a dwelling that is rooted in place, responsive to context, and composed with quiet intentionality.
