“De lo obsoleto a lo habitable” Rehabilitación arquitectónica de un edificio subutilizado para vivienda colectiva.

Abstract

This research proposes the architectural rehabilitation of a modern reinforced-concrete office building constructed in 1960 and located in Quito’s hypercenter, transforming it into a collective housing model. The thesis emerges from observing the progressive vacancy of the urban center alongside a growing housing demand that pushes residents toward peripheral areas, precarizing the act of inhabiting the city as a whole. Within this context, the project proposes the reactivation of the built city through the adaptive reuse of existing structures, understood as infrastructure capable of accommodating new residential dynamics. The intervention is developed through specific architectural operations such as slab voids to improve natural lighting and ventilation, selective demolition, the insertion of a new vertical circulation core, the activation of the ground floor as an urban interface, and a circulable façade system with a lightweight modular envelope. The proposal integrates minimal housing cells and family apartments, organized through shared spaces distributed throughout the building, reinforcing housing as a social pillar. As a result, the project positions itself as a replicable prototype aimed at recovering an abandoned hypercenter, reducing material waste, and contributing to the regeneration of the consolidated urban fabric.