In mid-2022, Juan Alberto Andrade, an architect and architectural photographer, and Cuqui Rodríguez, a communications professional with a self-described “architectural soul,” were expecting a child. It wasn’t the Ecuadorean couple’s first collaboration: Since 2016, they’ve worked together through their Guayaquil-based architectural photography firm, JAG Studio, traveling around the country for photo shoots and taking on projects both locally and abroad. When at home, they lived and worked in a three-story multifamily building in what Juan calls the “messy but beautiful” Puerto Azul neighborhood.

“We had our office downstairs in a small room,” he says, while their apartment was on the third floor. Although the couple enjoyed their nomadic lifestyle, they also enjoyed working from home—but to do more of the latter, they wanted more space and privacy within the family.

So while Cuqui was pregnant, she and Juan designed and built a ground-floor office expansion in the front of the building with the consent of their fellow residents. El Retiro, or The Retreat, as they call the expanded, 194-square-foot space, was inaugurated just a few days after baby Morena was born in January.

Juan and Cuqui consider El Retiro an office and a family space—with furniture suitable for improvised diaper-changing stations. The place looks like a small box, its rammed earth wall with a square window lining the edge of the street and framing a view out from their front space.

“Our goal in life is to give back to the street what it gave us, which is social life,” says Juan. Through their window, they can watch kids playing, dogs walking, and pedestrians passing by—this is the kind of life they both wanted for Morena. “For me, the street is everything. It is where all of life is,” Cuqui adds. “The door is always open.” Once inside, visitors can choose to sit on the floor or on a bean bag. The pair even created a small library in front of the small sink and tiny bathroom.

“Our goal in life is to give back to the street what it gave us, which is social life.”
—Juan Alberto Andrade, architect and resident

“The place is very us,” says Juan. Drawings, models, and gifts from friends decorate the walls, and the interior plants get moved around a lot. The couple focused on keeping materials in their natural state and bringing nature inside, through an interior garden with glass panels around a 28-year-old yucca tree.

To Cuqui, El Retiro reminds her of her childhood on the beach of Bahía de Caráquez, where she was in constant touch with nature and neighbors mingled on benches in front yards. “This office is like my little bench,” she says—and now, it’s also Morena’s.

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: JAG Studio

Roofing: Acesco and Masisa

Flooring: Aglomerados Cotopaxi

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