Everyday Practices and Urban–Architectural Supports in Public Space: An Observational Case Study with Visual–Architectural Analysis in Saraguro, Ecuador

Public space in Andean urban centers emerges through interactions among built form, temporal rhythms, and everyday practices. This study characterizes temporal variation in observed use intensity and estimated dwell time, describes primary actions and urban–architectural supports, and examines recurrent action–support relationships in central Saraguro, Ecuador. This observational, descriptive case study with visual–architectural analysis comprised 36 one-hour sessions over 12 fieldwork days from September 2025 to March 2026. Approximately 200 photographs formed the visual corpus; 20 candidate scenes and four final scenes were purposively selected. Categorical and numerical variables were summarized descriptively in R. Sunday sessions showed medians of 15 cumulatively observed people and 10 min for the selected primary-action episode, versus 8 people and 5 min on weekdays; all nine Sunday sessions had high or very high observed use intensity. Walking was the primary action in 10 sessions (27.8%), while the portal was the most frequently recorded urban–architectural support, occurring in 14 sessions (38.9%) across five primary-action categories. The study provides a traceable workflow linking repeated observation, descriptive coding, photographic evidence, and selective analytical drawing while distinguishing descriptive from interpretive evidence. The workflow is intended for context-sensitive adaptation rather than population-level generalization.