The Ministry of Urban Development and Housing (MIDUVI) presented the first national competition for the development of architectural proposals focused on the rehabilitation and recovery of underutilized state-owned buildings, to convert them into social housing, under the social lease management model.

This competition is aimed at architects or architectural groups licensed in Ecuador and consists of developing a pilot proposal for the rehabilitation of the MIDUVI Tungurahua Building. This building is about 40 years old and belonged to the Banco Ecuatoriano de la Vivienda and later became property of MIDUVI.

The beneficiaries of this initiative will be single mothers' homes, homes for people with disabilities, senior citizens, older adults, children and adolescents, pregnant women, people with catastrophic and highly complex illnesses, and victims of sexual or domestic violence. The projects must be adapted to the needs of the family groups.

The implementation of the competition is possible after the signing of an inter-institutional cooperation agreement between the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing (MIDUVI) and the Architects Association of Ecuador, province of Pichincha (CAE-P), signed last October at the National Urban Forum "Let's meet for Habitat and Housing". It also has the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), both of which are providing financing for the development of this pilot initiative.