The circular terraces of Moray are the most important Inca agricultural laboratory known to date. The proposal, winner in an international competition, concentrates the research on water management by studying the ancestral water collection infrastructures that shaped the Andean landscape. The building is conceived as an habitable infrastructure that combines several traditional techniques to guarantee the autonomy of the center throughout the year, making it possible to generate a surplus that is shared with the neighboring communities during the dry season. To create an inhabitable environment at 3,800 meters in height, the project adopts the strategies that the Incas used in their interventions on the territory, based on economy of means and on the intelligence in the use of resources. In this way, the complex is organized on a longitudinal floor plan placed along the ridge of the hill, taking advantage of the existing topography and of the orientation, in a precise combination of excavation and infill to illuminate the interiors and create courtyards protected from the wind. The flat roofs extend the natural ground and collect water that is later stored in a circular tank (qocha), placed in the center of public area. The walls are clad in local red andesite stone...[+]