On-site water treatment and harvesting 

Architecture can serve as a tool for social cohesion if it provides infrastructure. Mashpi River Community Tourism Association was helped with the design and construction of its Camping Area (multipurpose) with a cellar, bathrooms and a house for one person. It is an architecture that uses hole bamboo for the structure together with concrete bases and chopped bamboo for surfaces. The project had to respond to this 16 km long river at the Northwest of Quito that feeds another river and a mega diverse area environmentally sensitive.  Sanitary systems were fundamental: designing dry toilets and a banana circle to avoid contaminating the river because the project is implanted in the river basin. The project was designed in 2016 and was built in 2017. 

Carlos Hidalgo tells how in Ecuador, rural populationwith less than two thousand inhabitants still have difficulties to have adequate water and sanitation services. Among other reasons, because the conventional drainage system, for populated centers with scattered dwellings, is extremely expensive to install. In addition, all the waste from toilets and laundries (sewage) requires treatment that is also expensive, for this reason, many municipalities do not do it, causing environmental contamination by the dumping of these waters into the river, ditches and soil; For this reason, dry ecological toilets are chosen as an alternative for the service of the community of El Golan. With the construction of the Ecological Dry Bath, not only is an alternative being given to reduce the lack of infrastructure, it also commits each user to ensure the care of the environment and the preservation of fresh water. With the intention of improving the health of the families of the community, and avoiding the contamination of the soil and water, "The construction guide and the manual of use of the dry toilet" is elaborated so that they know the ECOLOGICAL DRY BATH: how it works, how it is built and how to give it a good maintenance that follows the sustainable and environmentally friendly principles that this community practices.

Besides treating water, harvesting it is a future problem in the entire country as some sectors are in risk of become deserts. Hildalgo also built a Zaguan in Mindo with buried water collection cisterns meant to compensate for the summer droughts.