02/06/21
Flor de maiz
R+LAB
Flor de Maíz is an intervention made alongside the inhabitants of the neighboirhood Toctiuco, students from the university of the Americas - UDLA, Quito, and URBANLAB Medellín/Berlin. The intervention was meant to improve the public space of this accidented topographic neighbourhood through a playground, facades intervantion, a viewpoint, and enhancing the stairs, an urban element that is located along the area but that unfortunately has been left aside by locals and became a hub of trash.
The design was based on the name Toctiuco, a quechua word that means "corn flower" (flor de maíz), that incentives people to feel identified and give them a sense of appropiation. Both the design and construction of these urban intervantions have activated and improved the quality of use in the public space, a playground and a viewpoint. The intervantion was done in december 2019 and now we're entering into a new phase of urban intervention in Toctiuco, potentially to be done in september 2021.