Between 2023 and 2024, photographers Francesco Russo and Luca Piffaretti documented architecture and landscapes across Ecuador's coast, the Andes Mountains, the Amazon rainforest, the Galápagos Islands, and cities such as Quito, Guayaquil, and Cuenca. The photographic documentation explores Ecuador's evolving identity through its contemporary architecture, examining how it engages with natural surroundings, urban conditions, and social contexts. The resulting archive includes more than 40 projects by renowned local practices such as Al Borde, Durán & Hermida, Emilio López, José María Sáez, La Cabina de la Curiosidad, MCM+A, Natura Futura, and RAMA Estudio, among many others. The selection demonstrates how architecture can create high-quality spaces that respond to contemporary demands for sustainability and environmental responsibility by combining creativity and technology with renewable resources, despite ongoing economic, climatic, and political challenges in Latin America and beyond.
The Republic of Ecuador, located on the equator and bordered by Colombia, Peru, and the Pacific Ocean, features one of the most diverse landscapes in the world. It spans four distinct geographical regions: the Andes, the Amazon, the Coast, and the Galápagos Islands, offering immense biodiversity and radically different environments. According to the photographers, the Coast, stretching along the Pacific, is characterized by lush tropical vegetation, a humid climate, and thriving agricultural activity. In the heart of the country, the Andes form a natural north–south divide, with peaks reaching up to 6,000 meters. This mountain range both protects and isolates the Amazon region, which extends eastward into Peru and Brazil. To the west, approximately 1,000 kilometers into the Pacific Ocean, the Galápagos Islands, made famous by Charles Darwin's 19th-century visit, host one of the planet's most biodiverse ecosystems, with a globally renowned array of wildlife and marine life.
Across these diverse regions, cities such as Quito, Guayaquil, and Cuenca are shaped by their geographic contexts. The photo series documents Ecuador's metropolitan areas, showing how modern infrastructure coexists with rich cultural and historical heritage. The images of contemporary architecture reveal how buildings respond to environmental and geographic diversity, capturing specific atmospheres shaped by vernacular construction techniques, local materials, and context-driven design solutions. The country's architectural landscape reflects a wide range of practices committed to addressing climate change as well as social and economic challenges. The photographers offer a perspective on how Ecuadorian architects are pushing the boundaries of building techniques toward sustainability while creating projects that serve communities across social and economic divides.
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Architecture in Ecuador: 16 Projects Rooted in Territory, Craft, and Collective PracticeAs a result of its layered geography, Ecuadorian architecture combines material experimentation with social engagement. According to editor Daniela Andino, architectural practice in Ecuador is increasingly understood as a collaborative, sustainable, and identity-building process: "their questions have shifted the design language from what to build to with whom." Working closely with artisans, communities, and local industries, architects are redefining the discipline through workshops, collective studios, and on-site experimentation, integrating activism into the design process. New academic programs and international references have fostered growing awareness of climate and social justice, opening space for creative responses to environmental and societal challenges, often drawing from the ancestral knowledge of Indigenous populations. From the use of palm leaves in coastal roofing to the innovative reuse of recycled materials in the Amazon, the photo series highlights projects that illustrate this ongoing transformation.
Francesco Russo is a photographer with a background in architecture, based in London and Venice, working internationally. After graduating in architecture from the IUAV University of Venice and practicing as an architect, he chose to dedicate himself fully to architectural photography. Luca Piffaretti, based in London and Switzerland, graduated in photojournalism from the University of Westminster. His work combines commissions for architects and designers with personal research focused on the psychogeographical exploration of his surroundings. Together, they co-founded MASS, a London-based collective dedicated to documenting the built environment. The group has produced and curated three major exhibitions, Londons (2021), Where the Flow Ends (2024), and Contrasts (2024), where they presented their Ecuador research at the Quito Architecture Biennale (BAQ). They also self-publish zines, organize educational activities in collaboration with universities and institutions, and plan to develop this Ecuador-focused series into a book.
Other recent architectural photo series include Paul Clemence's documentation of Kö-Bogen II, a commercial and office complex designed by ingenhoven architects in Düsseldorf, Germany, focusing on its green façade, one of the largest in Europe. He has also captured the construction of Oscar Niemeyer's Cristo Rei Cathedral in Belo Horizonte, one of the architect's final projects. Photographer Marc Goodwin has extended his Atlas of Architectural Atmospheres to Belgium, documenting architecture studios in Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent, many of which occupy buildings with layered histories, from former workshops and cinemas to storage facilities and waterfront structures. Also in Latin America, Edmund Sumner's photographs featured in Casa Mexicana span from Tadao Ando's Casa Wabi in Oaxaca to Rafael Pardo Arquitectos' Zoncuantla Apartments in Xalapa, revealing layered narratives of place, the convergence of tradition and innovation, and a subtle radicalism embedded in contemporary Mexican practice.
