MuNa/projects/ecuador-museum/docs/illustration-prompts.md

# Illustration Prompts for Casa de la Memoria Andina

Detailed AI image-generation prompts for the 13 illustrations placed
throughout `docs/counter-proposal.md`. Every prompt below is fully
**self-contained**: the shared style guide is pasted in full into each
one, so any single prompt can be copied on its own straight into an image
generator and will still produce an image consistent with all the others.
The duplication is deliberate — it is what keeps 13 separately-generated
images reading as one building.

Medium: **warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration** — a
painted presentation drawing, not a photorealistic render. Lighting and
weather are fixed identically across the whole set (the moment just after
an afternoon storm has passed), and the cast of people is described
consistently so the same "population" appears to inhabit every scene.

If a tool enforces a strict character limit, trim from the end of the
shared style-guide block first (the "Absolutely avoid" sentence can go
first) rather than shortening the scene description at the top of each
prompt.

---

## 1. Exterior corner view (from Av. Eloy Alfaro & Av. de la República)

Warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration, painted on
textured cold-press paper, loose confident brushwork with visible paper
grain, soft bled edges, no hard photographic realism and no 3D-render or
CGI look. The building is Casa de la Memoria Andina, a new national
museum in Quito, Ecuador, at high Andean altitude almost exactly on the
equator. A wide street-corner view of the whole museum complex seen from
the pavement at the corner of two busy city avenues in Quito. The building
appears as a gathered family of separate white-and-stone volumes — lower
wings to left and right, a taller central hall behind them crowned with a
broad pyramidal red-tile roof rising above the rest. The dark andesite
plinth runs along the whole street frontage at pedestrian eye level, with
the white limewashed walls and timber upper levels stepping back slightly
above it. Ordinary city traffic and a few pedestrians pass in the
foreground; the building fills the middle distance, with the green canopy
of a large park glimpsed at the edge of frame beyond it. Fixed lighting
and weather for every image in this set: the moment just after an
afternoon rainstorm has passed — pavements and roof tiles still dark and
glistening with rain, puddles reflecting the sky, a few scattered clouds
breaking apart, and warm late-afternoon equatorial sunlight breaking
through at a high, almost overhead angle, catching wet stone and throwing
soft warm highlights while shadows stay cool and blue-grey, throwing long
warm light across the wet street. Material and color palette, held
constant throughout: a heavy plinth and ground floor of dark grey volcanic
andesite stone; thick, monolithic walls above rendered in matte lime-white
limewash; a lighter upper level and roof structure of dark honey-brown
timber; deeply overhanging roofs of natural red-brown clay tile with sharp
shadow lines beneath the eaves; window carpentry, doors and balcony rails
in dark walnut-brown wood; window grilles and metalwork in near-black
wrought iron; a narrow band of muted dark oxblood-red paint along the base
of some walls, never the whole wall. Colour stays quiet and mostly
monochrome (white, grey stone, brown timber, red-brown tile) with small,
deliberate accents of color on doors, shutters, and ironwork only — never
a brightly coloured building. Ornament is geometric and restrained:
stepped Andean cross (chakana) motifs and diamond-coursed stonework
patterns appear only at the base of walls, around door and window
thresholds, and along roof cornices — plain white or timber wall surfaces
everywhere else, no applied decoration spread across whole façades.
Massing reads as a cluster of distinct linked stone-and-timber volumes of
varying height grouped around planted courtyards, with one taller central
hall carrying the highest, most prominent pitched and gabled roof of the
whole group, and lower roofs cascading down from it over the surrounding
wings. Courtyards throughout are planted with trees and low vegetation,
paved in stone and clay with narrow gaps of moss and small plants between
the joints, and lined with shaded arcaded walkways. People throughout the
set: an ordinary cross-section of present-day Ecuadorian people of mixed
ages — families, elderly visitors, museum staff, schoolchildren in
everyday (not folkloric) clothing, and adult men and women in plain
contemporary dress — painted loosely as small figures that give a sense of
human scale rather than as detailed portraits, never in costume, regalia,
or stereotype. Absolutely avoid: glass curtain walls, flat modernist
roofs, exposed grey concrete, a single monolithic tower or box, chrome or
glossy surfaces, any text, logos, signage, or watermark, and any hint of a
generic "iconic" contemporary museum silhouette — this building is
deliberately unspectacular, grounded, and human-scaled.

*Suggested framing*: wide street-level three-quarter view, landscape
orientation.

---

## 2. Stepped street elevation and roofscape

Warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration, painted on
textured cold-press paper, loose confident brushwork with visible paper
grain, soft bled edges, no hard photographic realism and no 3D-render or
CGI look. The building is Casa de la Memoria Andina, a new national
museum in Quito, Ecuador, at high Andean altitude almost exactly on the
equator. A closer, more frontal view walking along one of the two
avenues, showing how the building's street wall steps forward and back in
shallow increments rather than running as one flat façade — each step
creating a small sheltered recess, a covered entrance, or a shallow
balcony overlooking the street. Above, the roofscape is the real subject:
overlapping red-brown clay-tile roofs of different heights and pitches
cascade down from the tall central hall's roof toward the lower wings,
deep eaves throwing hard shadow bands across the white walls below. Rain
still drips from the eaves; the sky is clearing. Fixed lighting and
weather for every image in this set: the moment just after an afternoon
rainstorm has passed — pavements and roof tiles still dark and glistening
with rain, puddles reflecting the sky, a few scattered clouds breaking
apart, and warm late-afternoon equatorial sunlight breaking through at a
high, almost overhead angle, catching wet stone and throwing soft warm
highlights while shadows stay cool and blue-grey. Material and color
palette, held constant throughout: a heavy plinth and ground floor of dark
grey volcanic andesite stone; thick, monolithic walls above rendered in
matte lime-white limewash; a lighter upper level and roof structure of
dark honey-brown timber; deeply overhanging roofs of natural red-brown
clay tile with sharp shadow lines beneath the eaves; window carpentry,
doors and balcony rails in dark walnut-brown wood; window grilles and
metalwork in near-black wrought iron; a narrow band of muted dark
oxblood-red paint along the base of some walls, never the whole wall.
Colour stays quiet and mostly monochrome (white, grey stone, brown timber,
red-brown tile) with small, deliberate accents of color on doors,
shutters, and ironwork only — never a brightly coloured building. Ornament
is geometric and restrained: stepped Andean cross (chakana) motifs and
diamond-coursed stonework patterns appear only at the base of walls,
around door and window thresholds, and along roof cornices — plain white
or timber wall surfaces everywhere else, no applied decoration spread
across whole façades. Massing reads as a cluster of distinct linked
stone-and-timber volumes of varying height grouped around planted
courtyards, with one taller central hall carrying the highest, most
prominent pitched and gabled roof of the whole group, and lower roofs
cascading down from it over the surrounding wings. Courtyards throughout
are planted with trees and low vegetation, paved in stone and clay with
narrow gaps of moss and small plants between the joints, and lined with
shaded arcaded walkways. People throughout the set: an ordinary
cross-section of present-day Ecuadorian people of mixed ages — families,
elderly visitors, museum staff, schoolchildren in everyday (not
folkloric) clothing, and adult men and women in plain contemporary dress
— painted loosely as small figures that give a sense of human scale
rather than as detailed portraits, never in costume, regalia, or
stereotype. Absolutely avoid: glass curtain walls, flat modernist roofs,
exposed grey concrete, a single monolithic tower or box, chrome or glossy
surfaces, any text, logos, signage, or watermark, and any hint of a
generic "iconic" contemporary museum silhouette — this building is
deliberately unspectacular, grounded, and human-scaled.

*Suggested framing*: eye-level street perspective, slightly oblique,
landscape orientation, emphasis on the roofline against the sky.

---

## 3. The Civic Atrio, with a school group arriving

Warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration, painted on
textured cold-press paper, loose confident brushwork with visible paper
grain, soft bled edges, no hard photographic realism and no 3D-render or
CGI look. The building is Casa de la Memoria Andina, a new national
museum in Quito, Ecuador, at high Andean altitude almost exactly on the
equator. The raised forecourt of the museum, reached by broad shallow
stone steps and gently sloping ramps rising from street level, flanked by
low stone sitting-walls, planted terraces, and a few mature trees. A
school bus has stopped at the edge of the atrio; a teacher is doing a
headcount of a loose group of schoolchildren in front of the entrance
portal, which is visible in the middle distance as a deep, shadowed stone
opening. Small activity pockets line the atrio's edges — a modest
ticket-and-information kiosk, a bookstall with a striped awning,
sheltered benches — with a few other visitors sitting or walking through.
Wet stone paving reflects the clearing sky. Fixed lighting and weather for
every image in this set: the moment just after an afternoon rainstorm has
passed — pavements and roof tiles still dark and glistening with rain,
puddles reflecting the sky, a few scattered clouds breaking apart, and
warm late-afternoon equatorial sunlight breaking through at a high,
almost overhead angle, catching wet stone and throwing soft warm
highlights while shadows stay cool and blue-grey. Material and color
palette, held constant throughout: a heavy plinth and ground floor of
dark grey volcanic andesite stone; thick, monolithic walls above rendered
in matte lime-white limewash; a lighter upper level and roof structure of
dark honey-brown timber; deeply overhanging roofs of natural red-brown
clay tile with sharp shadow lines beneath the eaves; window carpentry,
doors and balcony rails in dark walnut-brown wood; window grilles and
metalwork in near-black wrought iron; a narrow band of muted dark
oxblood-red paint along the base of some walls, never the whole wall.
Colour stays quiet and mostly monochrome (white, grey stone, brown timber,
red-brown tile) with small, deliberate accents of color on doors,
shutters, and ironwork only — never a brightly coloured building. Ornament
is geometric and restrained: stepped Andean cross (chakana) motifs and
diamond-coursed stonework patterns appear only at the base of walls,
around door and window thresholds, and along roof cornices — plain white
or timber wall surfaces everywhere else, no applied decoration spread
across whole façades. Massing reads as a cluster of distinct linked
stone-and-timber volumes of varying height grouped around planted
courtyards, with one taller central hall carrying the highest, most
prominent pitched and gabled roof of the whole group, and lower roofs
cascading down from it over the surrounding wings. Courtyards throughout
are planted with trees and low vegetation, paved in stone and clay with
narrow gaps of moss and small plants between the joints, and lined with
shaded arcaded walkways. People throughout the set: an ordinary
cross-section of present-day Ecuadorian people of mixed ages — families,
elderly visitors, museum staff, schoolchildren in everyday (not
folkloric) clothing, and adult men and women in plain contemporary dress
— painted loosely as small figures that give a sense of human scale
rather than as detailed portraits, never in costume, regalia, or
stereotype. Absolutely avoid: glass curtain walls, flat modernist roofs,
exposed grey concrete, a single monolithic tower or box, chrome or glossy
surfaces, any text, logos, signage, or watermark, and any hint of a
generic "iconic" contemporary museum silhouette — this building is
deliberately unspectacular, grounded, and human-scaled.

*Suggested framing*: elevated three-quarter view looking across the
forecourt toward the entrance portal, landscape orientation.

---

## 4. The entrance portal

Warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration, painted on
textured cold-press paper, loose confident brushwork with visible paper
grain, soft bled edges, no hard photographic realism and no 3D-render or
CGI look. The building is Casa de la Memoria Andina, a new national
museum in Quito, Ecuador, at high Andean altitude almost exactly on the
equator. A close, symmetrical view of the museum's main entrance: a deep
stone portal built as a rhythm of five bays, projecting slightly from the
white wall plane around it, sheltered under the low, deep edge of the
roof above. Stonework at the portal is the most heavily worked surface in
the whole building — carved stepped (chakana) mouldings and
diamond-coursed masonry bands frame the door reveals, most densely at the
centre bay. Dark walnut doors stand open; a wrought-iron grille is
visible in a side window. A few figures — an adult and a child hand in
hand — are entering, small against the depth of the portal, giving a
sense of its scale. Rain-darkened stone glistens in raking late afternoon
light. Fixed lighting and weather for every image in this set: the moment
just after an afternoon rainstorm has passed — pavements and roof tiles
still dark and glistening with rain, puddles reflecting the sky, a few
scattered clouds breaking apart, and warm late-afternoon equatorial
sunlight breaking through at a high, almost overhead angle, catching wet
stone and throwing soft warm highlights while shadows stay cool and
blue-grey. Material and color palette, held constant throughout: a heavy
plinth and ground floor of dark grey volcanic andesite stone; thick,
monolithic walls above rendered in matte lime-white limewash; a lighter
upper level and roof structure of dark honey-brown timber; deeply
overhanging roofs of natural red-brown clay tile with sharp shadow lines
beneath the eaves; window carpentry, doors and balcony rails in dark
walnut-brown wood; window grilles and metalwork in near-black wrought
iron; a narrow band of muted dark oxblood-red paint along the base of
some walls, never the whole wall. Colour stays quiet and mostly
monochrome (white, grey stone, brown timber, red-brown tile) with small,
deliberate accents of color on doors, shutters, and ironwork only — never
a brightly coloured building. Ornament is geometric and restrained:
stepped Andean cross (chakana) motifs and diamond-coursed stonework
patterns appear only at the base of walls, around door and window
thresholds, and along roof cornices — plain white or timber wall surfaces
everywhere else, no applied decoration spread across whole façades.
Massing reads as a cluster of distinct linked stone-and-timber volumes of
varying height grouped around planted courtyards, with one taller central
hall carrying the highest, most prominent pitched and gabled roof of the
whole group, and lower roofs cascading down from it over the surrounding
wings. Courtyards throughout are planted with trees and low vegetation,
paved in stone and clay with narrow gaps of moss and small plants between
the joints, and lined with shaded arcaded walkways. People throughout the
set: an ordinary cross-section of present-day Ecuadorian people of mixed
ages — families, elderly visitors, museum staff, schoolchildren in
everyday (not folkloric) clothing, and adult men and women in plain
contemporary dress — painted loosely as small figures that give a sense
of human scale rather than as detailed portraits, never in costume,
regalia, or stereotype. Absolutely avoid: glass curtain walls, flat
modernist roofs, exposed grey concrete, a single monolithic tower or box,
chrome or glossy surfaces, any text, logos, signage, or watermark, and any
hint of a generic "iconic" contemporary museum silhouette — this building
is deliberately unspectacular, grounded, and human-scaled.

*Suggested framing*: frontal, centred, portrait or square orientation to
emphasise verticality and depth of reveal.

---

## 5. The Patio of Origins

Warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration, painted on
textured cold-press paper, loose confident brushwork with visible paper
grain, soft bled edges, no hard photographic realism and no 3D-render or
CGI look. The building is Casa de la Memoria Andina, a new national
museum in Quito, Ecuador, at high Andean altitude almost exactly on the
equator. The first courtyard beyond the entrance passage — an
open-to-sky stone-and-clay-paved court with narrow planted joints between
the slabs, moss and small flowers growing in them. A shallow stone-lined
water channel crosses the court, fed by a carved stone spout projecting
from a roof edge, water still running from the just-passed storm. Shaded
arcaded walkways line the court on at least two sides; doors open into it
from several directions, including one marked informally as a community
room. A handful of visitors stand under the sheltered arcade watching the
last of the rain, while others cross the court in the returning sun. Wet
paving throws soft reflections of the white walls and clearing sky above.
Fixed lighting and weather for every image in this set: the moment just
after an afternoon rainstorm has passed — pavements and roof tiles still
dark and glistening with rain, puddles reflecting the sky, a few
scattered clouds breaking apart, and warm late-afternoon equatorial
sunlight breaking through at a high, almost overhead angle, catching wet
stone and throwing soft warm highlights while shadows stay cool and
blue-grey. Material and color palette, held constant throughout: a heavy
plinth and ground floor of dark grey volcanic andesite stone; thick,
monolithic walls above rendered in matte lime-white limewash; a lighter
upper level and roof structure of dark honey-brown timber; deeply
overhanging roofs of natural red-brown clay tile with sharp shadow lines
beneath the eaves; window carpentry, doors and balcony rails in dark
walnut-brown wood; window grilles and metalwork in near-black wrought
iron; a narrow band of muted dark oxblood-red paint along the base of
some walls, never the whole wall. Colour stays quiet and mostly
monochrome (white, grey stone, brown timber, red-brown tile) with small,
deliberate accents of color on doors, shutters, and ironwork only — never
a brightly coloured building. Ornament is geometric and restrained:
stepped Andean cross (chakana) motifs and diamond-coursed stonework
patterns appear only at the base of walls, around door and window
thresholds, and along roof cornices — plain white or timber wall surfaces
everywhere else, no applied decoration spread across whole façades.
Massing reads as a cluster of distinct linked stone-and-timber volumes of
varying height grouped around planted courtyards, with one taller central
hall carrying the highest, most prominent pitched and gabled roof of the
whole group, and lower roofs cascading down from it over the surrounding
wings. Courtyards throughout are planted with trees and low vegetation,
paved in stone and clay with narrow gaps of moss and small plants between
the joints, and lined with shaded arcaded walkways. People throughout the
set: an ordinary cross-section of present-day Ecuadorian people of mixed
ages — families, elderly visitors, museum staff, schoolchildren in
everyday (not folkloric) clothing, and adult men and women in plain
contemporary dress — painted loosely as small figures that give a sense
of human scale rather than as detailed portraits, never in costume,
regalia, or stereotype. Absolutely avoid: glass curtain walls, flat
modernist roofs, exposed grey concrete, a single monolithic tower or box,
chrome or glossy surfaces, any text, logos, signage, or watermark, and any
hint of a generic "iconic" contemporary museum silhouette — this building
is deliberately unspectacular, grounded, and human-scaled.

*Suggested framing*: ground-level view across the courtyard toward the
arcade, landscape orientation.

---

## 6. The Great Hall interior, with the retablo wall

Warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration, painted on
textured cold-press paper, loose confident brushwork with visible paper
grain, soft bled edges, no hard photographic realism and no 3D-render or
CGI look. The building is Casa de la Memoria Andina, a new national
museum in Quito, Ecuador, at high Andean altitude almost exactly on the
equator. The soaring interior of the museum's tallest room: a broad
pyramidal timber roof rises overhead with its structural framework fully
exposed, ribs and beams visible in dark timber. The lower edge of the hall
drops to a human scale — window seats, alcoves, an information counter —
and a wide staircase turns along two walls, widening into broad steps
near the floor where a few people sit and children gather. One end wall
of the hall is the single ornamented surface in the entire building: a
tall, tiered composition of niches and carved frames, warmly lit, holding
abstracted sun and moon discs, stylised maize, Andean flowers, birds, and
animal forms — a single glowing focal wall against otherwise plain white
and timber surfaces. Soft daylight falls through high windows onto the
stair and floor below. Fixed lighting and weather for every image in this
set: the moment just after an afternoon rainstorm has passed outside the
building — beyond the high windows, pavements and roof tiles are still
dark and glistening with rain, with puddles and a few scattered clouds
breaking apart, though none of this is directly visible from inside the
hall — and warm late-afternoon equatorial sunlight now breaks through at
a high, almost overhead angle, streaming in through the high windows and
throwing soft warm highlights across the dry stone and timber surfaces of
the stair and floor, while shadows deep within the timber roof structure
stay cool and blue-grey. Material and color palette, held constant
throughout: a heavy plinth and ground floor of dark grey volcanic
andesite stone; thick, monolithic walls above rendered in matte
lime-white limewash; a lighter upper level and roof structure of dark
honey-brown timber; deeply overhanging roofs of natural red-brown clay
tile with sharp shadow lines beneath the eaves; window carpentry, doors
and balcony rails in dark walnut-brown wood; window grilles and metalwork
in near-black wrought iron; a narrow band of muted dark oxblood-red paint
along the base of some walls, never the whole wall. Colour stays quiet
and mostly monochrome (white, grey stone, brown timber, red-brown tile)
with small, deliberate accents of color on doors, shutters, and ironwork
only — never a brightly coloured building, except
for the one warmly lit figurative retablo wall described above, which is
this building's single deliberate concentration of rich color and detail.
Ornament everywhere else is geometric and restrained: stepped Andean
cross (chakana) motifs and diamond-coursed stonework patterns appear only
at the base of walls, around door and window thresholds, and along roof
cornices — plain white or timber wall surfaces everywhere else, no
applied decoration spread across whole façades. Massing reads as a
cluster of distinct linked stone-and-timber volumes of varying height
grouped around planted courtyards, with this central hall carrying the
highest, most prominent pitched and gabled roof of the whole group, and
lower roofs cascading down from it over the surrounding wings. People
throughout the set: an ordinary cross-section of present-day Ecuadorian
people of mixed ages — families, elderly visitors, museum staff,
schoolchildren in everyday (not folkloric) clothing, and adult men and
women in plain contemporary dress — painted loosely as small figures that
give a sense of human scale rather than as detailed portraits, never in
costume, regalia, or stereotype. Absolutely avoid: glass curtain walls,
flat modernist roofs, exposed grey concrete, a single monolithic tower or
box, chrome or glossy surfaces, any text, logos, signage, or watermark,
any hint of a generic "iconic" contemporary museum silhouette, and any
puddles, wet flooring, rain, or glistening wet surfaces anywhere inside
the hall itself — the interior stair, floor, and walls are completely
dry throughout; this building is deliberately unspectacular, grounded,
and human-scaled.

*Suggested framing*: interior view from stair landing or floor level
looking up into the roof structure and across toward the retablo wall,
portrait or landscape orientation.

---

## 7. A circulation gallery (building thoroughfare)

Warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration, painted on
textured cold-press paper, loose confident brushwork with visible paper
grain, soft bled edges, no hard photographic realism and no 3D-render or
CGI look. The building is Casa de la Memoria Andina, a new national
museum in Quito, Ecuador, at high Andean altitude almost exactly on the
equator. One of the museum's main indoor circulation galleries — tall,
wide, and daylit from clerestory windows along one side, closer in feel
to an indoor street than a corridor. Its edges are lined with built-in
seating, glass-fronted display niches, and doorways, with an interior
window on one side revealing a glimpse of a workroom where an object is
being examined. A small school group in a loose cluster moves through
comfortably alongside individual visitors, without crowding. Fixed
lighting and weather for every image in this set: the moment just after
an afternoon rainstorm has passed outside — through a small window at the
gallery's end, a distant glimpse of a still-wet courtyard shows dark,
glistening paving and a few scattered clouds breaking apart, but that
wetness is confined entirely to the small distant view through the
glass; the gallery itself — its floor, walls, and seating — stays
completely dry throughout, lit by warm late-afternoon equatorial
sunlight breaking through at a high, almost overhead angle and spilling
softly through the clerestory glazing, with interior shadows staying
cool and blue-grey. Material and color palette, held constant throughout: a heavy
plinth and ground floor of dark grey volcanic andesite stone; thick,
monolithic walls above rendered in matte lime-white limewash; a lighter
upper level and roof structure of dark honey-brown timber; window
carpentry and doors in dark walnut-brown wood; window grilles and
metalwork in near-black wrought iron; a narrow band of muted dark
oxblood-red paint along the base of some walls, never the whole wall.
Colour stays quiet and mostly monochrome (white, grey stone, brown
timber) with small, deliberate accents of color on doors and ironwork
only — never a brightly coloured interior. Ornament is geometric and
restrained: stepped Andean cross (chakana) motifs and diamond-coursed
stonework patterns appear only at the base of walls and around door and
window thresholds — plain white or timber wall surfaces everywhere else,
no applied decoration spread across whole walls. People throughout the
set: an ordinary cross-section of present-day Ecuadorian people of mixed
ages — families, elderly visitors, museum staff, schoolchildren in
everyday (not folkloric) clothing, and adult men and women in plain
contemporary dress — painted loosely as small figures that give a sense
of human scale rather than as detailed portraits, never in costume,
regalia, or stereotype. Absolutely avoid: glass curtain walls, flat
modernist roofs, exposed grey concrete, a single monolithic tower or box,
chrome or glossy surfaces, any text, logos, signage, or watermark, any
hint of a generic "iconic" contemporary museum silhouette, and any
puddles, wet flooring, rain, or glistening wet surfaces anywhere inside
the gallery itself — the interior floor, walls, and seating are
completely dry throughout; this building is deliberately unspectacular,
grounded, and human-scaled.

*Suggested framing*: one-point perspective looking down the length of
the gallery, landscape orientation.

---

## 8. The historical gallery route (Corredor of Time), common-room bay

Warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration, painted on
textured cold-press paper, loose confident brushwork with visible paper
grain, soft bled edges, no hard photographic realism and no 3D-render or
CGI look. The building is Casa de la Memoria Andina, a new national
museum in Quito, Ecuador, at high Andean altitude almost exactly on the
equator. A gallery within the historical wing, walls of limewashed
earthen render with exposed dark timber beams overhead, maps and framed
documents on the walls, and a scatter of domestic historical objects in
low cases. The route widens at one point into a common-room bay:
built-in seating around a bright window bay looking onto a courtyard,
where a family and a small school group are resting together, a teacher
pointing something out through the window. Fixed lighting and weather for
every image in this set: the moment just after an afternoon rainstorm has
passed outside — through the window bay, the courtyard beyond is glimpsed
still wet and glistening, with a few scattered clouds breaking apart, but
that wetness is confined entirely to the courtyard on the far side of the
glass; the common-room bay itself — its seating, floor, and walls — stays
completely dry throughout, lit by warm late-afternoon equatorial sunlight
breaking through at a high, almost overhead angle and spilling through
the window bay, with interior shadows staying cool and blue-grey.
Material and color palette, held constant throughout: a heavy plinth and
ground floor of dark grey volcanic andesite stone (glimpsed at the
courtyard edge); thick, monolithic walls above rendered in matte
lime-white limewash; a lighter upper level and roof structure of dark
honey-brown timber; window carpentry, doors and balcony rails in dark
walnut-brown wood; window grilles and metalwork in near-black wrought
iron; a narrow band of muted dark oxblood-red paint along the base of
some walls, never the whole wall. Colour stays quiet and mostly
monochrome (white, grey stone, brown timber, red-brown tile) with small,
deliberate accents of color on doors, shutters, and ironwork only — never
a brightly coloured building. Ornament is geometric and restrained:
stepped Andean cross (chakana) motifs and diamond-coursed stonework
patterns appear only at the base of walls, around door and window
thresholds, and along roof cornices — plain white or timber wall surfaces
everywhere else, no applied decoration spread across whole façades.
People throughout the set: an ordinary cross-section of present-day
Ecuadorian people of mixed ages — families, elderly visitors, museum
staff, schoolchildren in everyday (not folkloric) clothing, and adult men
and women in plain contemporary dress — painted loosely as small figures
that give a sense of human scale rather than as detailed portraits, never
in costume, regalia, or stereotype. Absolutely avoid: glass curtain
walls, flat modernist roofs, exposed grey concrete, a single monolithic
tower or box, chrome or glossy surfaces, any text, logos, signage, or
watermark, any hint of a generic "iconic" contemporary museum
silhouette, and any puddles, wet flooring, rain, or glistening wet
surfaces anywhere inside the gallery or common-room bay itself — the
interior floor, walls, and seating are completely dry throughout; this
building is deliberately unspectacular, grounded, and human-scaled.

*Suggested framing*: interior view angled to show both the gallery route
and the bright window-bay seating area, landscape orientation.

---

## 9. The artistic wing's balcón and rooftop mirador

Warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration, painted on
textured cold-press paper, loose confident brushwork with visible paper
grain, soft bled edges, no hard photographic realism and no 3D-render or
CGI look. The building is Casa de la Memoria Andina, a new national
museum in Quito, Ecuador, at high Andean altitude almost exactly on the
equator. An upper-level gallery in the lightest, most timber-framed part
of the building, opening through tall doors onto a long recessed covered
balcony (balcón corrido) that overlooks the main courtyard below. Beyond
it, a small roofed lookout bay is folded into the main roofline rather
than built up as a tower, framing a single view outward across the
rooftops of Quito toward the green flank of a distant volcano, its summit
just clearing the breaking storm clouds. A couple of visitors lean on the
balcony rail; another stands inside the lookout bay taking in the view.
Fixed lighting and weather for every image in this set: the moment just
after an afternoon rainstorm has passed — rooftops below still dark and
glistening with rain, puddles in the courtyard reflecting the sky, a few
scattered clouds breaking apart around the distant volcano, and warm
late-afternoon equatorial sunlight breaking through at a high, almost
overhead angle, catching wet rooftops and throwing soft warm highlights
while shadows stay cool and blue-grey. Material and color palette, held
constant throughout: a heavy plinth and ground floor of dark grey
volcanic andesite stone (visible far below); thick, monolithic walls
rendered in matte lime-white limewash; this level itself built lighter,
in dark honey-brown timber; deeply overhanging roofs of natural
red-brown clay tile with sharp shadow lines beneath the eaves; window
carpentry, doors and balcony rails in dark walnut-brown wood; window
grilles and metalwork in near-black wrought iron. Colour stays quiet and
mostly monochrome (white, grey stone, brown timber, red-brown tile) with
small, deliberate accents of color on doors, shutters, and ironwork only
— never a brightly coloured building. Ornament is geometric and
restrained: stepped Andean cross (chakana) motifs and diamond-coursed
stonework patterns appear only at the base of walls, around door and
window thresholds, and along roof cornices — plain white or timber wall
surfaces everywhere else, no applied decoration spread across whole
façades. Massing below reads as a cluster of distinct linked
stone-and-timber volumes grouped around planted courtyards, roofs
cascading down from the tall central hall over the surrounding wings.
People throughout the set: an ordinary cross-section of present-day
Ecuadorian people of mixed ages — families, elderly visitors, museum
staff, schoolchildren in everyday (not folkloric) clothing, and adult men
and women in plain contemporary dress — painted loosely as small figures
that give a sense of human scale rather than as detailed portraits, never
in costume, regalia, or stereotype. Absolutely avoid: glass curtain
walls, flat modernist roofs, exposed grey concrete, a single monolithic
tower or box, chrome or glossy surfaces, any text, logos, signage, or
watermark, and any hint of a generic "iconic" contemporary museum
silhouette — this building is deliberately unspectacular, grounded, and
human-scaled.

*Suggested framing*: view from just inside the gallery looking out
through the balcony toward the courtyard and the distant volcano,
landscape orientation.

---

## 10. Deep recessed balcony, café terrace, and garden

Warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration, painted on
textured cold-press paper, loose confident brushwork with visible paper
grain, soft bled edges, no hard photographic realism and no 3D-render or
CGI look. The building is Casa de la Memoria Andina, a new national
museum in Quito, Ecuador, at high Andean altitude almost exactly on the
equator. The museum café, its glazed doors open onto a roofed veranda and
a sunlit garden beyond, still wet from the storm. A deep,
two-metre-plus recessed balcony along the wing above provides shelter
overhead. A parent sits at a café table with their back to the building,
watching two or three children playing in the garden ahead; other
visitors sit under the veranda. Steam rises faintly from the warming wet
paving in the returning sun. Fixed lighting and weather for every image
in this set: the moment just after an afternoon rainstorm has passed —
the garden still dark and glistening with rain, puddles reflecting the
sky, a few scattered clouds breaking apart, and warm late-afternoon
equatorial sunlight breaking through at a high, almost overhead angle,
catching wet foliage and paving and throwing soft warm highlights while
shadows stay cool and blue-grey. Material and color palette, held
constant throughout: a heavy plinth and ground floor of dark grey
volcanic andesite stone; thick, monolithic walls above rendered in matte
lime-white limewash; a lighter upper level and roof structure of dark
honey-brown timber; deeply overhanging roofs of natural red-brown clay
tile with sharp shadow lines beneath the eaves; window carpentry, doors
and balcony rails in dark walnut-brown wood; window grilles and metalwork
in near-black wrought iron; a narrow band of muted dark oxblood-red paint
along the base of some walls, never the whole wall. Colour stays quiet
and mostly monochrome (white, grey stone, brown timber, red-brown tile)
with small, deliberate accents of color on doors, shutters, and ironwork
only, plus the natural greens of the garden planting — never a brightly
coloured building. Ornament is geometric and restrained: stepped Andean
cross (chakana) motifs and diamond-coursed stonework patterns appear only
at the base of walls, around door and window thresholds, and along roof
cornices — plain white or timber wall surfaces everywhere else, no
applied decoration spread across whole façades. Courtyards and gardens
throughout are planted with trees and low vegetation, paved in stone and
clay with narrow gaps of moss and small plants between the joints, and
lined with shaded arcaded walkways. People throughout the set: an
ordinary cross-section of present-day Ecuadorian people of mixed ages —
families, elderly visitors, museum staff, schoolchildren in everyday (not
folkloric) clothing, and adult men and women in plain contemporary dress
— painted loosely as small figures that give a sense of human scale
rather than as detailed portraits, never in costume, regalia, or
stereotype. Absolutely avoid: glass curtain walls, flat modernist roofs,
exposed grey concrete, a single monolithic tower or box, chrome or glossy
surfaces, any text, logos, signage, or watermark, and any hint of a
generic "iconic" contemporary museum silhouette — this building is
deliberately unspectacular, grounded, and human-scaled.

*Suggested framing*: eye-level view from just inside the café looking
out through the veranda to the garden, landscape orientation.

---

## 11. Stonework and timber detail at the portal (close-up)

Warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration, painted on
textured cold-press paper, loose confident brushwork with visible paper
grain, soft bled edges, no hard photographic realism and no 3D-render or
CGI look. The building is Casa de la Memoria Andina, a new national
museum in Quito, Ecuador, at high Andean altitude almost exactly on the
equator. A close, almost macro view of the entrance portal's carved
andesite stonework: a stepped chakana motif worked into a door moulding,
alongside a band of diamond-coursed stone bonding, catching raking
late-afternoon light so every incised edge throws a crisp shadow. Beside
the stone, a fragment of dark walnut door framing shows fine joinery — a
wooden door pull carved with a smaller stepped motif echoing the stone
beside it. A few raindrops still bead on the stone surface. Fixed
lighting and weather for every image in this set: the moment just after
an afternoon rainstorm has passed — the stone surface still glistening
with rain, and warm late-afternoon equatorial sunlight breaking through
at a high, raking angle across the carved relief, throwing soft warm
highlights while the incised grooves stay in cool blue-grey shadow.
Material and color palette, held constant throughout: dark grey volcanic
andesite stone, carved and bonded in diamond-coursed bands; dark
walnut-brown timber joinery beside it; a narrow hint of muted dark
oxblood-red paint just visible at the edge of frame. Colour stays quiet
and mostly monochrome (grey stone, brown timber) with no bright color
anywhere in this detail. Ornament here is geometric and restrained,
exactly as it is throughout the building: a stepped Andean cross
(chakana) motif and diamond-coursed stonework, made through the
carving and jointing of the material itself, never as applied surface
decoration. Absolutely avoid: glass, chrome or glossy surfaces, any
text, logos, signage, or watermark, and any hint of a generic modern
material — this building's ornament is hand-carved stone and timber,
grounded and human-scaled.

*Suggested framing*: tight close-up, square orientation, raking light
from one side to emphasise carved relief and texture.

---

## 12. A courtyard elevation showing the full material and color palette

Warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration, painted on
textured cold-press paper, loose confident brushwork with visible paper
grain, soft bled edges, no hard photographic realism and no 3D-render or
CGI look. The building is Casa de la Memoria Andina, a new national
museum in Quito, Ecuador, at high Andean altitude almost exactly on the
equator. A straight-on elevation view of one courtyard-facing wall of the
museum, composed to display the whole material and color system together
in one frame: the dark grey andesite plinth and steps at the base, a
narrow band of muted oxblood-red paint just above it, tall white
limewashed wall above that, dark walnut window and door carpentry with
small-paned glazing, a black wrought-iron grille over one window, and the
red-brown clay-tile roof edge with its deep eave at the top of the frame.
A section of arcade with timber posts runs along the foot of the wall,
and planting softens the base. The wall is still patched with rain
shadow, drying unevenly in patches of returning sun. Fixed lighting and
weather for every image in this set: the moment just after an afternoon
rainstorm has passed — the wall's lower courses still dark and damp,
puddles at the foot of the wall reflecting the sky, a few scattered
clouds breaking apart, and warm late-afternoon equatorial sunlight
breaking through at a high, almost overhead angle, catching the wet
lower wall and throwing soft warm highlights while shadows under the
arcade stay cool and blue-grey. Material and color palette, the actual
subject of this image: dark grey volcanic andesite stone at plinth and
steps; a narrow band of muted dark oxblood-red paint above it; matte
lime-white limewashed wall above that; dark walnut-brown timber window
and door carpentry; near-black wrought iron grille; natural red-brown
clay roof tile at the eave. Colour stays quiet and mostly monochrome
overall, with this one wall showing every accent color the building uses,
each in its correct, restrained place — never spread evenly across the
whole surface. Ornament is geometric and restrained: a stepped Andean
cross (chakana) motif and diamond-coursed stonework pattern appear only
at the base of the wall and around the window threshold — the rest of
the wall stays plain and calm. Absolutely avoid: glass curtain walls,
flat modernist roofs, exposed grey concrete, chrome or glossy surfaces,
any text, logos, signage, or watermark, and any hint of a generic
"iconic" contemporary museum silhouette — this building is deliberately
unspectacular, grounded, and human-scaled.

*Suggested framing*: flat, frontal elevation view, landscape or square
orientation, even light across the whole wall.

---

## 13. Departure: the entrance room looking back to the atrio

Warm architectural watercolor and gouache illustration, painted on
textured cold-press paper, loose confident brushwork with visible paper
grain, soft bled edges, no hard photographic realism and no 3D-render or
CGI look. The building is Casa de la Memoria Andina, a new national
museum in Quito, Ecuador, at high Andean altitude almost exactly on the
equator. The view from just inside the museum's entrance room, looking
back out through the deep portal toward the Civic Atrio and the street
beyond, at the end of the day. A few visitors are leaving, walking away
from the camera toward the light; the sky beyond has cleared to a warm
late-afternoon gold, silhouetting the low sitting-walls and trees of the
atrio and the city skyline beyond. Warm interior light spills from the
entrance room into the cool shadow of the portal passage. Fixed lighting
and weather for every image in this set: the moment just after an
afternoon rainstorm has passed — the forecourt paving beyond still
glistening with rain, a few scattered clouds breaking apart low on the
skyline, and warm late-afternoon equatorial sunlight breaking through at
a low golden angle outside while the portal passage itself stays in cool
blue-grey shadow. Material and color palette, held constant throughout: a
heavy plinth and ground floor of dark grey volcanic andesite stone; thick,
monolithic walls above rendered in matte lime-white limewash; a lighter
upper level and roof structure of dark honey-brown timber; deeply
overhanging roofs of natural red-brown clay tile; window carpentry, doors
and balcony rails in dark walnut-brown wood; window grilles and metalwork
in near-black wrought iron; a narrow band of muted dark oxblood-red paint
along the base of some walls, never the whole wall. Colour stays quiet
and mostly monochrome (white, grey stone, brown timber, red-brown tile)
with small, deliberate accents of color on doors, shutters, and ironwork
only — never a brightly coloured building. Ornament is geometric and
restrained: stepped Andean cross (chakana) motifs and diamond-coursed
stonework patterns appear only at the base of walls, around door and
window thresholds, and along roof cornices — plain white or timber wall
surfaces everywhere else, no applied decoration spread across whole
façades. People throughout the set: an ordinary cross-section of
present-day Ecuadorian people of mixed ages — families, elderly
visitors, museum staff, schoolchildren in everyday (not folkloric)
clothing, and adult men and women in plain contemporary dress — painted
loosely as small figures that give a sense of human scale rather than as
detailed portraits, never in costume, regalia, or stereotype. Absolutely
avoid: glass curtain walls, flat modernist roofs, exposed grey concrete,
a single monolithic tower or box, chrome or glossy surfaces, any text,
logos, signage, or watermark, and any hint of a generic "iconic"
contemporary museum silhouette — this building is deliberately
unspectacular, grounded, and human-scaled.

*Suggested framing*: interior-to-exterior view looking straight out
through the portal, landscape orientation, strong light/dark contrast
between interior shadow and the bright forecourt beyond.