This issue of TC Cuadernos gathers the most recent and significant production of the Duran & Hermida architecture studio, founded in Cuenca, Ecuador, by Javier Durán and María Augusta Hermida.

With essays by Javier García-Solera and Ricardo Daza, the issue ranges from small single-family homes to complete campuses, through complex renovations, public schools, university buildings or blocks of collective housing always resolved from formal containment and constructive impeccability.

They work on the basis of a tradition where they start with the structure to give a general order to the project, following the search for clear and austere solutions with a technical and constructive know-how that has bee refined building by building. For the architects from Cuenca, the resolution of details is fundamental, but they are aware that the singular elements are not the determining factor of the work, but rather the relationships that are interwoven between them to create a space that is delimited but strategically open to the horizon. Thus, they dilute the interior limits to open up the space and allow its inhabitants to observe the exterior; they create thresholds of mediation that frame nature to the point of turning it into a domestic landscape. 

You can go to visit the houses of Los Faiques, Misicata or El Alto, the Jacobo building, the El Parque building or the rehabilitation they undertake of the Casa Larga on Larga street ... and find the quality and care that are capable of applying to each program of domestic use, in such diverse conditions and with such different needs.

Thus, this office is incorporated, naturally and by right, into the list of the populated gallery of the modern Latin American tradition’s great names. And while this is happening, they are at home, at the university or the studio, in their own land and doing their own thing.

Contents

Vanguard and Resistance in the Andine Mountain Range
Javier García-Solera

Linking Crafts. Conversation with Javier Durán and María Augusta Hermida
Clara Mejía y Ricardo Meri · Universidad Politécnica de Valencia

Between the Andes and the Mediterranean
Ricardo Daza Caicedo. Profesor Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Jacobo Building, Cuenca. Ecuador
Misicata Houses, Cuenca. Ecuador
Víctor J. Cuesta Square, Cuenca. Ecuador
Los Faiques Houses, Santa Isabel. Ecuador
Unidad del Milenio Paiguara School, Gualaceo. Ecuador
El Alto House, Cuenca. Ecuador
El Parque Building, Cuenca. Ecuador
Central Campus, Cuenca University. Ecuador
Central Campus Urban and Architectonic Renovation. Cuenca University. Ecuador
Carlos Cueva Tamariz Theater's Renovation, Cuenca University. Ecuador
School of Psychology Building. Cuenca University. Ecuador
Fuerzas Armadas University ESPE. Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas. Ecuador
Campus Balzay, Cuenca University. Ecuador
Lecture Hall Building 01 · CCTIB Cuenca University. Ecuador
Microred · CCTIB Cuenca University. Ecuador
Basic Sciences Lecture Hall Building · CCTIB Cuenca University. Ecuador
Technology Centre · CCTIB Cuenca University. Ecuador
Administrative Building · CCTIB Cuenca University. Ecuador