Corporativo 194

Located in Quito, CORPORATIVO 194 breaks away from the contemporary paradigm of the high-performance sealed box through a bold concrete structure articulated by asymmetrical floating garden terraces that dissolve the boundary between inside and outside. Rather than functioning as an enclosed glass object, the building opens itself to light, air, vegetation, and landscape—transforming the office into a porous and deeply human environment. Organized through horizontal and vertical layers, the terraces anchor the project to the Andean topography while creating inhabitable thresholds suspended between architecture and nature. Native vegetation rises across the tower as a living ecological spine, bringing shade, biodiversity, and moments of stillness into everyday working life. More than an office building, CORPORATIVO 194 proposes a new relationship between architecture, climate, and human sensibility—where nature is not decoration, but presence.
Set between Quito’s two major green areas, the project is conceived as an ecological bridge within the city. Drawing from the dramatic Andean topography, the building unfolds through a sequence of garden terraces that define its bold architectural character. Far from ornamental, these terraces act as climatic, spatial, and social thresholds that mediate interior and exterior conditions. Public and private, work and pause, inside and outside gradually dissolve into a continuous architectural experience shaped more by atmosphere than enclosure.
CORPORATIVO 194 embodies the Japanese concept of syakkei—the understanding that landscape should not be framed as distant scenery, but integrated as an active component of architecture itself. This relationship begins at the ground floor, where a green sidewalk shaded by salvaged ceiba trees becomes both entrance and space of permanence. Throughout the tower, the garden terraces establish visual and environmental connections with the city and surrounding mountains. The rooftop, with panoramic Andean views, becomes a communal space featuring a café, dining area, leisure zone, meeting room, and auditorium with iconic Series 7 chairs by Arne Jacobsen.
While achieving LEED Platinum certification through passive and active environmental strategies, CORPORATIVO 194 understands sustainability beyond technical metrics. As Ecuador’s first LEED Platinum-certified office building, it establishes a new precedent where environmental performance and architectural expression become inseparable. Its modular glazed façade optimizes daylight, ventilation, and energy efficiency, achieving a 25% reduction in energy demand and 35% reduction in water consumption, while prefabricated systems minimize waste and construction impact. More than a super-efficient office building, CORPORATIVO 194 proposes another way of inhabiting the contemporary workplace: not as an isolated object disconnected from its surroundings, but as a living system deeply connected to climate, landscape, and human well-being. It is an architecture that seeks not only efficiency, but resonance—reclaiming the workplace as a space for openness, sensory engagement, and emotional connection with nature.