Discover MUTUO - a consultancy agency based in Lima, Peru, launched by alumni

About MUTUO

MUTUO is a consultancy agency based in Lima, Peru, and established in 2016 to foster collaboration projects between people in civil society and both public and private organisations to promote habitat prosperity. MUTUO works in sociocultural projects, social innovation, and policy design and analysis in areas such as Housing, Urbanism, Education and Sustainable Development.

Mar Layesca and Sebastian Paredes Smith are co-ofounders and Principal Consultants on the different consultancy projects, working in design and research for policies and programs, and both studied at the UCL Institute for Global Prosperity. 

Mar (Chief Executive Officer of MUTUO) came to the Institute in 2018 with a bachelor's degree in architecture, however she chose not to follow a traditional career as an architect. With an inherent passion for arts and design, Mar chose to study the Global Prosperity MSc because they felt aligned to the idea of rethinking and reshaping the social and economic paradigms that currently rule the world. Sebastian (Chief Operating Officer of MUTUO) started his journey of a PhD in Global Prosperity in 2021, incorporating his interests and experiences in housing finance and promoting habitat prosperity.

To date, MUTUO has worked in projects with many actors in Peru and across the globe. MUTUO has worked with architects, engineers, NGOs, associations of construction companies, the Ministry of Housing, Swisscontact, the Inter-American Development Bank, the World Bank group, the metropolitan Municipality of Lima, Bernard van Leer, UNESCO and others.

The Ciudades [en] Visible project

Ciudades [en] Visible is an open innovation project started in 2017. It involves a design, funding and development process for the housing projects of 5 families in an informal settlement in the south of Lima. The project demanded the synergy and collaboration of many stakeholders, like the Peruvian Camera of Construction, the Peruvian association of construction entities, public social housing programs, financial entities, Academia, architects, engineers, different market agents, etc. 

The project started with an open call architecture competition that aimed to convene better housing designs for the families. More than 200 teams from 20 different countries contributed with their designs, and one Peruvian-Ecuadorian team was the winner. After that, many financial obstacles arose for the families to be able to materialise their projects. After three years of iterations, synergies and adjustments MUTUO were able to create a model that allowed one family to achieve its funding and finally build their home. This process and its impact are described in the mini documentary. We believe this exercise has brought highly valuable insights that can serve future housing design, research and policy programmes.

Watch the short YouTube documentary about the Ciudades [en] Visible project:

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