Excerpt: Ficus Alto- Outdoor Art Platform is a public space designed by Natura Futura Arquitectura. Ficus Alto expresses the need for a space of convergence and exploration for new artists from satellite communities, where food, art and music can foster shared experiences. Their objective was to generate a flexible space for gastronomic and artistic exploration, which values artisanal cuisine with local ingredients, open to the natural environment and the community.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by Architect] Ficus Alto expresses the need for a space of convergence and exploration for new artists from satellite communities, where food, art and music can foster shared experiences.
The project is located in Pisagua, a precinct of Montalvo, province of Los Rios, Ecuador, with approximately 1363 inhabitants, in a transition zone between the coast and the highlands. Vanessa and Jordan decided to give life to Ficus Alto. Their objective was to generate a flexible space for gastronomic and artistic exploration, which values artisanal cuisine with local ingredients, open to the natural environment and the community.
The project is located on a 9x7m platform, reusing the front yard of his house where cocoa was traditionally dried. Its structure is configured by two metal porches and a 9x9m roof, supported by wooden trusses with a convex curve section, where the possibility of using wooden planks of 0.15 x 4 x 0. 02m to generate each of the nine trusses to tighten, reduce costs, and cover a greater length without intermediate pillars with a smaller section. Using the site’s labour and materials, we seek the rescue and reinterpretation of the form in which we use them, dignifying and repowering it for new uses.
The flexible program connects the platform with pre-existing elements of the site, such as the old house, the ficus and a rock that serves as furniture. Its openness makes it an extension of the home and the sidewalk, functioning as a space for daily activities. Ficus Alto is an opening space for local artistic initiatives to generate new possibilities for social and cultural encounters in communities of passage from minimal architecture.
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