#1028 Arquitectura y Paisaje Turns a 12 m² Terrace in Quito into a Sacred Ceramics Workshop

Architecture rarely gets more personal than this. When a ceramist asked her brother and his partners at #1028 Arquitectura y Paisaje to convert a leftover 12 m² terrace into a workspace, the brief was disarmingly direct: make the room as beautiful as the objects it would help create. The result, completed in 2024 in Quito, Ecuador, is a micro-pavilion that punches far above its square footage, deploying spherical geometry, fabric sunshades, and a restrained palette of pine wood and yellow-painted steel to produce a space that feels closer to a chapel than a shed.

What makes this project genuinely interesting is not the scale but the commitment to spatial narrative at that scale. The architects treat a residual terrace the way a Renaissance builder might treat an apse: centering the potter's wheel under a dome-like enclosure formed by fabric stretched over a spherical radius, then letting that same curve ripple outward to shape the back wall and the semi-arched facade. It is a project that insists small interventions can carry big ideas, and it backs up that insistence with precise detailing and a coherent geometric logic.

A Sphere Disguised as a Pergola

From the outside, the workshop reads as a modest pavilion: a yellow steel frame supporting timber elements beneath an open sky. Look closer and the structure reveals its governing idea. A wooden pergola rests on existing walls, and metal frames branch upward from it to form a gentle gable. Between the pergola plane and the floor, the architects inscribe a sphere whose radius determines the curvature of the fabric sunshades overhead. The result is a soft dome that filters equatorial light into a warm, diffused glow, ideal for the slow focus that pottery demands.

The yellow steel angle brackets and column connections are deliberately exposed, even celebrated. Each joint between metal and timber is legible, letting you trace the load path from shade to beam to wall. In a project this small, every connection is ornament, and the architects seem to know it.

Light Through Layers

The layered plywood ceiling fins are the workshop's most photogenic move, but they also do serious environmental work. Set in parallel waves above the timber counters, they break direct sunlight into rhythmic stripes on the concrete floor. The effect changes throughout the day as the sun's angle shifts across Quito's nearly equatorial latitude, producing a constantly moving pattern that makes the small room feel alive rather than static.

Translucent panels sit between the fins, balancing openness and enclosure in a way that lets the ceramist work comfortably without needing heavy curtains or mechanical cooling. It is a low-tech climate strategy perfectly suited to Quito's temperate highland climate, where shading matters more than insulation.

Yellow Steel and Pine: A Material Dialogue

The material palette is deliberately limited to two voices: yellow-painted steel and raw pine wood, supplied by local manufacturer Indumadera. The contrast is tonal rather than dramatic. Pine provides warmth and grain; steel provides structure and color. Where the two meet, the architects leave the joint exposed, a bolted angle or a welded bracket that reads honestly against the softer timber.

Along the facade, shelving brackets in yellow steel hold ceramic vessels against a rich maroon wall. The color pairing is unexpected and effective, giving the display area the quality of a curated gallery rather than simple storage. It is a small detail that signals the project's larger ambition: to treat every surface as an opportunity for care.

Inhabiting the Dome

A workshop lives or dies by how it feels during use, and the photograph of the ceramist pouring tea beneath the layered ceiling is telling. The space is intimate without being cramped, luminous without glare. The timber counters run parallel, organizing the narrow footprint into clear zones for making and storing. Overhead, the plywood waves create a canopy that lowers the perceived ceiling height just enough to foster concentration.

The architects describe ceramics as a practice balanced between design, craftsmanship, and mindfulness. The first two they could address directly through proportion and materiality. The third, they argue, emerges from the spatial conditions they set up: the filtered light, the curved enclosure, the quiet palette. Whether or not you buy the quasi-spiritual framing, the room clearly works. It feels like a place where you could sit at a wheel for hours and lose track of time.

Why This Project Matters

Twelve square meters is barely enough for a parking space, yet #1028 Arquitectura y Paisaje has extracted from it a coherent architectural proposition. The spherical geometry is not decorative whimsy; it organizes structure, shade, and facade into a unified system. The material restraint is not austerity; it focuses attention on joints, light, and the objects the room exists to produce. In a profession that often equates ambition with size, this workshop is a useful corrective.

Lead architects Paula Cárdenas, José Freire, and Alejandro Ramos have delivered something that feels genuinely generous: a room designed for one person's creative practice, but built with the spatial intelligence of a much larger commission. The project reminds us that architecture's real currency is not area but intention, and that even the smallest residual space can become, with enough care, a place worth inhabiting deeply.

Ceramics Workshop by #1028 Arquitectura y Paisaje (Lead Architects: Paula Cárdenas, José Freire, Alejandro Ramos). Quito, Ecuador. 12 m². 2024. Photography by Carlos Palacios.

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