Two stone-walled volumes with grassy roofs are embedded into a rural site in Ecuador to form this house, designed by Quito's Rama Estudio.

Casa Patios is secondary family home located in Lasso, a small rural municipality in the province of Cotopaxi.
It comprises two offset volumes that are partially sunken into the landscape, with a third structure adjoining them in the middle. Patios located on either side of this central volume give the house its name.

Thick stone walls flanking the main volumes prop up gently sloped roofs covered in vegetation. Additional walls are formed from bahareque, a construction made of soil and straw packed onto a wooden and metal mesh frame ? similar to rammed earth or adobe construction.
"These serve as enclosure and have been used for centuries in our country," Rama Estudio said, adding that the walls were built with soil from the building site itself.
It follows a number of residences in the small South American country that are designed to make the most of local materials. Examples include a house by Rama Estudio, featuring rammed-earth walls, and Emilio López's Don Juan house, which uses amarillo and asta woods.
In Casa Patios, Rama Estudio chose the bahareque to improves the thermal and sound insulation properties of the interior.

The warm tones of the walls also complement an exposed structure, comprising steel elements, and beams and columns made of eucalyptus wood. According to Rama Estudio, eucalyptus is abundant in the...