PROJECTS
Street for Kids
Diseñando ciudades a 95 cm de altura
Mirar la ciudad a través de los ojos de la niñez cambia las reglas del juego. Junto a Global Designing Cities Initiative (GDCI), transformamos calles que antes eran solo para autos en espacios seguros, limpios y llenos de vida para quienes más lo necesitan.
MoVer
U Good
How are the young people of Cuenca really doing?
Huasipichanga is part of u'GOOD, the first global research program on youth well-being in the Global South. We tell you how urban space shapes the mental health of the next generation.
Safe and Sound Cities
Young people transforming the course of their cities
We don't just inhabit the city, we re-imagine it. S²Cities (Safe and Sound Cities) is a global program that drives well-being and urban safety by putting power in the hands of those who know the territory best: young people.
Cuenca Cómo Vamos
Quality of Life Observatory
We don't just collect figures; we transform data into evidence so that Cuenca can be a fairer, safer, and more humane place. We are the citizen observatory that measures quality of life to drive real actions that change the city.
Family-led Clean Air Observatory
The air your children breathe today
For the first time in Ecuador, families take control of the data. We don't just measure pollution; we connect Quito, Guayaquil, and Cuenca in a real-time monitoring network to transform our health and our cities.
Healthy Cities for Adolescents
Healthy cities for adolescents
In Quevedo and Riobamba, together with LAB XXI, Fondation Botnar, local allies, and academia, we drive a global initiative where young people co-design their environment, care for their mental health, and lead the creation of friendlier, safer, and healthier cities.
Tejiendo Futuro
Protective communities and safe environments
In Quitumbe, Calderón, and Crucita, together with Fundación Favorita, LAB XXI, and AEI, we transform vulnerable spaces into environments of peace, school well-being, positive parenting, and local development for those who will transform tomorrow.
Real Play City Challenge
Local communities, global challenges
Globally, the Real Play Coalition (Arup, IKEA, The LEGO Foundation, National Geographic, UNICEF) and PlacemakingX we transform urban environments into playful, safe, and sustainable spaces, showing that to change the world, you first have to go out and play.
Tu También Construyes Cuenca - TTCC
Urban pedagogy and active mobility
Who says urbanism is just for adults?
On the streets of Cuenca, children make the decisions. Through urban pedagogy, children identify the problems in their neighborhoods and co-design solutions with the municipality, neighbors, and creatives to create safe, sustainable, and healthy school routes that transform public space from their own perspective.
72 Hours of Urban Action
Design, community, and architecture
What happens when you bring together makers from Syria, Indonesia, and Germany with the mission of transforming a public space in just three days?
The "Happy Platte Friends" team took on the challenge. Right in the heart of the Cold War-era Plattenbau blocks in Jena, Germany, we broke down invisible borders and urban disuse to co-create an interactive and flexible wooden installation that connects the neighborhood's past, present, and future through play and gathering.
Reactiva Cuenca Escalinatas
Tactical urbanism, appropriation of space, and public policy
Can an unsafe transit zone be transformed into a permanent cultural stage for citizens?
At Cuenca's iconic Escalinatas (stairway), we showed that it can. Together with the architectural collective El Selectivo (Guayaquil), neighbors, and local authorities, we activated the different levels of the stairs through urban art, message-exchange dynamics, light, and play for children. What began as an ephemeral intervention to activate a sense of belonging sparked an autonomous youth cultural movement and became, two years later, the foundation for the Municipality of Cuenca to approve the Ordinance on the Use of Public Spaces.
Workshop: Re-imagining Early Childhood Development
Human cities at a child's eye level
In Dakar, Senegal, we decided it's time to re-imagine public space. Together with ImagiNation Afrika, UNICEF, and global private-sector leaders, we drove a transformative learning journey where we showed that designing cities focused on early childhood and their caregivers is the most powerful strategy for creating healthy, inclusive, and walkable cities for everyone.
Co-creation of Tools for Inclusive Cities
Collaborative methodologies at a human scale
In Bari, Italy, we showed that urban planning begins by listening to people. Together with La Scuola Open Source and a multidisciplinary team of makers from Germany, Mexico, and Italy, we activated a full-immersion workshop to design collective tools, map mobility and identity challenges, and transform public space through empathy, ethnographic research, and inclusion.
Snake.city
Urban game design and collective play
Within the framework of the European school Trust in Play, we co-created a multiplayer experience that transforms public space into a giant game board. Inspired by the classic mobile game Snake, this game invites people to physically connect their phones, form human chains, and redefine the rules of the game in real time. It's technology, movement, and community to rediscover the art of playing together.
From a maze to a(maze)d
Neighborhoods that amaze through the eyes of children
In Ningbo, China, we joined ISOCARP, UNICEF, and the China Urban Planning Society to completely transform the Mingdong community. We went from a monotonous neighborhood where children felt trapped as if in a maze, to a walkable, green, and playable environment co-designed by the children themselves, showing that a neighborhood designed for childhood positively transforms the entire community.
Simeri laboratorio urbano
Reactivating public life and rural landscapes
We traveled to southern Italy to prove it. Simeri Laboratorio Urbano is an experimental regeneration practice where we joined a network of local and international actors.
Through a co-creative approach and a strong sense of community, we transformed rural landscapes and reactivated public spaces to spark the territory's social and economic life.
Exploring at home
Emotional support for children during COVID-19
At the height of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Exploradores de la Ciudad team (Mexico City) and Huasipichanga came together to create an immediate mental health response. We launched an exploration diary, translated into multiple languages, that transformed confinement into a safe space for children to process their emotions, raising their voices and sending a global message of resilience and solidarity.
Shaglli Play & Learn
Rural identity, tactical urbanism, and play
In the parish of Shaglli, Azuay, we showed that public space heals the social fabric. Together with local communities, schools, and autonomous governments, we transformed an abandoned playground into a playful learning environment. Using recycled materials, children co-designed games that tell the story of their rivers, lagoons, and legends, building a collective heritage that restores hope and a sense of rootedness to their land.
Bolivia Panpa Tukuyninpa
Identity, social memory, and cultural landscapes
In Villa Abecia, Bolivia, we showed that the community is the owner of its own landscape. Within the framework of the Latin American Social Workshop (TSL), we activated a multidisciplinary approach for the first time, where students, the town hall, artisans, and schools reclaimed the surroundings of the local cemetery. We co-created three squares with native materials, transforming a transit space into a vibrant viewpoint and meeting point that today belongs to everyone.
Canoa Externalisation workshop
Resilience, community art, and post-disaster reconstruction
One year after the 2016 earthquake in Canoa, Manabí, we showed that reconstruction begins with art and empathy. In the phase leading up to the Latin American Social Workshop (TSL), we activated a creative lab in the public library where children processed their emotions and painted their dreams for the future. By handing over their works, on recycled canvases, to the 230 architects and researchers from 16 countries, we placed children's voices at the heart of urban design and social responsibility.
Pocket Park
Urbanism, self-management, and play in the historic center
Can a private parking lot be transformed into a green, playable oasis in just one hour?
During the University of Cuenca's LlactaCamp event, we teamed up with Creative Roots to prove it. We broke the mold by freeing up a fenced-off space hidden behind the Cathedral, turning it—with 100% recycled materials—into an ephemeral park with mini-golf, futbol-tennis, music, and art. A surprise intervention that activated the local economy, inspired adults, and showed children that cities can be lived in and transformed in a completely different way.