In the Pampas rural territory, the dwelling is not a mere shelter: it is also a cultural fact. Its form, materiality, and construction technique express ways of life, relationships with the landscape, and productive traditions. In this context, the house is conceived as a device for intermediation between living and the territory, capable of integrating domestic life with the productive logic of the contemporary countryside.

Rural dwelling is understood as a life extended into the landscape, where activities are not concentrated inside the house but are dispersed throughout the grounds. Cooking, drying clothes, repairing tools, gardening, or resting under a porch are actions that occur between the interior and exterior, in a continuous space without clear limits.

The proposal reinterprets that traditional typology organized around a domestic core and a series of dispersed annexes—sheds, chicken coops, storage rooms, corrals—that function interdependently within a productive system. The daily practices of those who inhabit these territories are what ultimately produce the space and shape the landscape.

In the Pampa plain, the productive artifacts—silos, large sheds, metal roofing structures — have built an identity where technique became language. Modularity, repetition, and economy of means form an industrial-agrarian aesthetic that has become part of the landscape’s imaginary. Dry-construction systems and lightweight envelopes condense that technical rationality, while also allowing the architecture to adapt to seasonal cycles of use, assembly and disassembly, and the mobility that characterizes current rural life.

The proposed dwelling translates that productive logic into a contemporary key, understanding that the industrialized house, a product of our time, embraces this technical tradition and projects it into the present. Its installation does not require destruction for construction: it can enhance nature, integrating into the landscape without imposing itself, even through aesthetic contrast.

Its technified object does not deny the environment but reveals and enhances it. Instead of seeking camouflage, its presence defines a balance between production and contemplation, between industrial precision and the vitality of the territory.

Its adaptable nature allows for variations in program, extensions, or new additions without losing coherence. Thus, the dwelling ceases to be a fixed object and transforms into a living system, capable of evolving with its inhabitants and with the material and cultural landscape of the Pampa.

The project, therefore, proposes a new rurality where technique and culture, memory and innovation, coexist in balance, recognizing the productive materiality of the countryside as a source of identity and contemporaneity.

“The project deliberately rejects the idea of an expansion in the northern part of the plot, instead emphasizing a new centrality through a system that brings together the existing buildings and the new extension of the cabins. The dual relationship between tradition and advanced technological solutions—expressed through the use of new materialities—is particularly compelling, as is the introduction of functional “devices” such as the outdoor cinema and the viewpoint tower, which contribute to the overall coherence of the scheme. Greater emphasis could be placed on the relationship with the entrance and arrival sequence.”

Davide Casaletto – Fluidiforme

“This projecti situates the design at the intersection of industrial construction technologies and territorial rural logics, inscribing the contemporary state of architecture and its material products into the rural site’s layered sense of time.”

T. R. Radhakrishnan – Interboro Partners

The Project

La Madreselva is rooted in the character of its region – its climate and traditions. Instead of imposing a new order, the focus was put on the social traditions of the region – its informal gatherings, shared meals, music, and everyday encounters – guided the entire design process. These customs, deeply rooted and omnipresent in local life, shaped both the indoor and outdoor spaces, encouraging interaction whether in dedicated event areas or on a quiet bench tucked into the landscape
The project begins with the existing building and locally sourced materials, unfolding into a clear sequence of experiences across the site. The former storage hall is transformed into a shared dining space for local cuisine, communal cooking, and spontaneous payadas. The existing houses were redesigned to feel more open and collective, with local clay tiles connecting the old structure to the new interventions. One house receives an additional quincho and barbecue area, creating a generous outdoor kitchen and gathering space. The new guesthouses take cues from local vernacular architecture, using timber frames and earth blocks. Their simple forms are carved to create shaded terraces and framed views, with red clay tiles and crate-like details adding texture and character. Metal roofing and elements echo the material language already present on the site.
The architecture, together with the network of paths and small anchor points scattered across the site, forms a cohesive map of the Madreselva experience. Each element was conceived to preserve and highlight local habits and enrich them through thoughtful, functional additions that support and elevate the way people naturally come together.

Housing Units

The form of units composed of intersecting rectangular volumes, naturally define the two distinct outdoor spaces: a front terrace  toward the site encouraging casual encounters, and aprivate one at the back. The voids carved in the building form are framed with tiles, creating a refined dialogue with the other materials,
The front entrance part remains partially covered to provide privacy while preserving awelcoming presence, the rear façade, fully glazed, invites the landscape views into the rooms. Above, the roof gently reinterprets a traditional silhouette. Subtle details, such as the slender columns at the corners or the roof drainage, complement the simple and calm, yet richconceptually architecture.

“I enjoyed how the sense of cultural and social gathering is woven into the architectural composition by material selection and free grid. The collage-like architectural language blends seamlessly into the landscape while also creating new cultural ground for connection.”

Weiyu Xu – KPF Associates

The proposal begins with a close reading of the site, using what is already present–its buildings, trees and irregularities– as the framework for a series of measured interventions.
A circular path structures the whole, connecting the terrain through a sequence of small episodes reacting to the existing beauties and curiosities, connecting and valorising the site’s specificities. Along the walk, moments of contemplation are either emphasised or created. These points act as simple but deliberate markers that guide movement and define how the place is experienced.
The project follows a principle: reuse when possible, add where needed, and build only when necessary.

Influenced by the discoveries around the site, such as the windmill or the elevated water tank, functions are consciously and visibly added instead of hidden. They communicate an extension while valorising the existing.

The so-called second house gets a new reading room on the roof, this extension structures the open floor plan on the ground by furnishing it with a central bookshelf. The nest sitting on the roof is equipped with solar windows, catching the sunlight and furnishing the house not only with books, but also with electricity. In the former storehouse a greenhouse is inserted, this allows for a new spatial organisation and structures the storage shed into four rooms, hosting up to eight people. Organised as a central core, the greenhouse acts as a light-shaft and climate regulator and with its communal kitchen and living space becomes a shared place of encounters.

Learning from these interventions and with an outlook towards the future use of the site, a new building supplements the ensemble, its ground floor functioning as the communal hub for all guests, with spaces for cooking, gathering and resting. On the upper floor, four independent rooms allow for views over the site and beyond. The new construction leaves room to imagine forms of habitation for both larger groups and individual use.

Throughout the site, the interventions stay practical and low-tech, favouring adaptation over replacement. Taken together, the path and the dispersed set of interventions form a coherent retreat, offering a structure for moving, experiencing and wondering through the landscapes and a set of places for being in it– alone, together, and in between.

“The project is inserted into the context with tact and precision, both in terms of the scale of the intervention and the character of the architecture. Particularly noteworthy is the symbiotic relationship between the proposed additions and the existing rural buildings. The originality of the functional program and its typological articulation is also appreciated.”

Valerio Poltrini – Studio Nebbia

The project reimagines La Madreselva as a contemporary rural retreat, ideal for short departures, where the landscape itself becomes the primary structure. A vast, unbroken horizon that guides perception and movement. In a time defined by schedules and urban noise, the Argentinian Pampas offers a counter condition: an immensity so still it seems to absorb the restlessness carried from the city.

The Lodging Area, north of territory, conceived as a calm and introspective domain, here seven dwellings are placed with deliberate distance from the homestead, allowing silence and long views to settle around each one. Five one-bedroom units welcome couples or small families, while two larger houses host extended groups, bringing the estate’s total capacity up to twenty guests. All dwellings share the same daytime core, allowing the one-bedroom units to be expanded into larger houses over time with the simple addition of a second room. Their radial arrangement defines the project’s main gesture: each dwelling turns toward its own fragment of the horizon, avoiding visual overlap and intensifying the feeling of inhabiting the Pampas in solitude. Privacy here is understood not as separation, but as a quiet form of freedom.

Inside, each dwelling unfolds as a continuous domestic landscape, where spaces flow without interruption. The main living area sinks gently by two steps, a small shift that grounds the body, slows perception, and frames the horizon with a quiet sense of ritual. Fireplaces and outdoor fire pits extend inhabitation into the cool nights, while the bedrooms become the most sheltered retreats, oriented toward the longest and calmest views.

Vehicular access remains discreet and secondary, each dwelling with its own parking space. Movement returns to the scale of the body, walking, drifting without urgency.

At the center of the estate, the Landscape Area, ease the passage from quietude to collective encounters.Introduces a new artificial pond that acts as climatic and scenic device, cooling the air and supporting native species. The existing tank is preserved as a pool overlooking the water, reinforcing the role of water as an atmospheric and symbolic presence. Around this oasis, small recess areas and informal recreational spaces, for cycling, soccer, or simple wandering, fold gently into the landscape.

The Homestead Area, is reactivated as the social heart of the retreat, preserving the character and quiet dignity of Argentine rural culture. The main house becomes a clubhouse for reception, breakfast, and communal indoor activities, maintaining its role as a place where daily life naturally converges. Near the windmill and the old well, the former second house is refitted as a small general store for essential provisions, while an open-fire gathering space anchors evenings shaped by stories, music, and rituals of the countryside. Slightly apart, a quiet clearing hosts outdoor cinema nights under the vast sky. Finally, the large barn is adapted as a flexible hall for celebrations, allowing the estate to embrace moments of festivity.

“The proposal highlights the relationship with the site and the material and constructive condition, reinforcing their architectural significance.”

Lara Andrea Pendino – FAPyD

The Pampas Plain stretches as a vast open field reshaped over centuries by large-scale agriculture and cattle ranching. Its surface carries the marks of sustained cultivation with deep-plowed monocultures and rotating herds of grazing cattle. Plot boundaries and irrigation channels inscribe their networks upon the plain. Here and there, patches of native grasses and wetlands persist as traces of an older ecology that continues to endure in one of the world’s most altered landscapes.

Within this altered condition, this intervention restores a small pocket of native vegetation with scattered trees, wildflowers and perennial grasses. The re-wilded ground returns permeability and habitat to the site. Visitors are offered an encounter with the land’s erstwhile character and with the gaucho heritage of San Antonio de Areco.

At the center of the compound, two existing houses and a barn frame a grassy area now re-imagined as a courtyard meadow. In this pastoral square, planted with native grasses, an earthen fire pit invites visitors to gather and contemplate the vastness of the Pampas. Flanking the meadow, existing buildings are re-purposed to host new programs from a welcome office and supply desk in the historic main house to an event space in the barn. A new bar building defines the fourth edge of the courtyard and extends outward into the re-wilded landscape. Together, these four structures frame a new center of social activity on the site.

The hotel building extends the logic of the estancia galleria into a full architectural system that reaches outward into the landscape to establish a new relationship between the courtyard, the lodgings, and the Pampas beyond. The new building imbues the traditional galleria with a novel porosity; its compressed earth floor expresses continuity with the re-wilded ground and its spatial organization invites a sense of collective belonging, with a centrifugal scattering of volumes under one continuous roof. This language extends into the lodging units, where engineered earthen floors and enfilades continue the dialogue between Argentine tradition and landscape.

This porosity enables the introduction of shared programs in the galleries; a traditional dance floor, several quinchos, and an Australian-tank-turned-pool weave together the site’s agricultural history with gaucho traditions of music and dance alongside social cooking. This new architecture infuses the site with a deep sense of history, recalling the cultural highway that once brought customs from Areco to Buenos Aires, where Gaucho musical traditions like milonga campera and payadas shaped early urban milonga and formed the roots of tango.

The new, resilient landscape of La Madreselva sustains the living heritage of the gaucho – from sheltered galleries to the open landscape, from reflecting alone to cooking together, from walking with wildflowers to dancing with strangers. The Meadow juxtaposes curated moments of social intensity with the quietude of the restored Pampas landscape, its openness, calm, and ecological richness.

“This projection extends a gallery-like structure from the existing cluster of buildings and engages the meadow.”

T. R. Radhakrishnan – Interboro Partners

The vast, silent Pampas plains are defined by an endless horizon. This minimal line—dividing yet integrating sky and earth—organizes the territory and reveals the essential. In its simplicity, the horizon ripples only with the occasional tree, a gesture translating the horizontal immensity of these spaces. Here, nature imposes itself through both presence and silence, where simple elements acquire profound meaning.

This horizon guides the project. In this open landscape, the new architecture adopts a light, suspended attitude: touching the earth lightly. Constructions rest gently on the ground, allowing the continuity of the Pampas, recognizing that the territory is matter, time, and memory.

Existing structures, charged with history, are recovered to house new social and commercial programs. Notably, the existing shed (galpón) is reconverted into a restaurant dedicated to traditional Argentine asado al asador, a transformation matching the magnitude of the new complex. Rather than replacing these structures, the project amplifies their validity, embracing Glenn Murcutt’s premise: “If it is worth keeping, then that is where true sustainability begins.”

The “Australian tank,” a fundamental rural element, is redefined as the complex’s center of leisure. Once pure infrastructure, it transforms into a Wellness Hosue with a new poolintegrated with the tank, spa, solarium and gym. The tank becomes a meeting point and the symbolic heart articulating the Madreselva‘s life.

New accommodation units—for two and four guests—are interspersed throughout the site, generating patios and natural corridors. This avoids rigid repetition, producing a horizontal rhythm that dialogues with the Pampas scale. The units delineate a new “horizon within the horizon,” offering guests a direct relationship with nature, light, and wind.

Two distinct circulation systems structure the experience of the territory. A primary path connects the three architectural moments—the recovered heritage, the wellness center, and the new housing—culminating in an open-air amphitheater designed for bonfires and traditional payadas. Simultaneously, a second trail weaves through the natural infrastructure, linking the children’s playgrounds and the forest before terminating at a newly created lagoon.

These interventions seek not to alter the place’s essence, but to intensify it. They recover what is valuable and propose new ways of inhabiting the plains. The project celebrates the landscape, proposing a future where gathering and wellness are integrated into a gesture that touches the earth with softness, just as the horizon touches the sky.

“The project clearly defines the connections between the different components of the plot (the existing structures, the Wellness House, and the new units), culminating in an open-air auditorium that effectively concludes the spatial sequence. Particular significance is attributed to the Australian Tank, whose central role is reinforced by a portico structure that enhances its symbolic value. The articulation of the residential units, although formally simple, plays with the horizontal character of traditional architecture, fostering a commistion between private and shared spaces. Another noteworthy aspect is the relationship between the new constructions and the ground: the buildings rest lightly on the terrain through a limited number of contact points, thereby minimizing their impact on the landscape.”

Davide Casaletto – Fluidiforme

In Tapiales de Areco, we propose an architecture that does not arrive to impose itself, but to accompany the place and uphold its pampeano identity. The project is guided by a central principle: to refunctionalize what exists with the minimum intervention required, and to expand only with materials consistent with the site’s constructive tradition. The intention is to accommodate up to 20 guests without altering the rural essence of the property, allowing the landscape to continue setting the rhythm.

San Antonio de Areco is a land of low horizons, honest materials, and long silences. For this reason, the new intervention works with a palette that extends that memory: tapia (rammed earth), laminated wood, and metal sheeting, in dialogue with the site’s historic materials – adobe, wood and metal. Tapia (rammed earth) provides thermal mass and cultural continuity; laminated wood enables structural efficiency, fast assembly, and a contemporary tectonic expression: meta sheeting continues in the roots as an element already present on the lodge.

The landscape strategy focuses on intervening only where necessary. It is organized around three layers of landscape; native vegetation is restored growing unhurriedly, defining seasons. scents. and textures and it structures paths and access routes while providing the required shade. The existing trees on the site are preserved and, in some cases, new ones are added to reinforce shade and microclimate, always respecting the original species. Mown grass is limited to circulation and rest areas only. A perimeter of gravel organizes access and hard surfaces without altering the topography, while the center of the site remains open to preserve the reading of the pampa.

Within this setting, the new lodging units are placed as compact, low-impact pieces dispersed among the grasslands to ensure privacy, cross-ventilation, and a direct relationship with the landscape. Each module includes a bedroom, bathroom, and kitchenette, resolving an essential program with spatial efficiency and minimal infrastructure.

The original buildings are preserved and reactivated with new uses:

The smaller house functions as reception and shop; the main house becomes a restaurant and communal heart; the barn is transformed into a flexible hall for celebrations, classes, and gatherings, incorporating on the side facing the pool a spa with services and a controlled expansion area. The tanque australiano is maintained as a swImming pool, reinforcing the site’s rural identity. Each of these preexisting structures receives a rammed earth volume. a materia gesture that unities the ensemble and links past and present through a coherent language.

The outdoor spaces -tables under the trees, a central fire pit, paths through the grasslands, rest areas – weave together activities and people, generating a porous system of encounter that extends life toward the landscape.

More than a collection of cabins, Tapiales de Areco is an ecosystem of architecture and landscape that amplifies the site’s identity without altering it. With precise and quiet interventions, the project allows the place to resonate again with its original essence.

“The proposal is sensitive to its surroundings, both formally and materially. It is subtly inserted into the context and highlights the experience of being in the landscape—of inhabiting it.”

Ana Lina Klotzman – Navello Klotzman Arquitectas

Of Clearings and Rooms imagines living as a condition embedded within nature rather than placed beside it. At La Madreselva, dwelling is not conceived as an isolated object in the Pampas, but as a series of clearings in which daily life unfolds. Eight lodging units—six for two guests and two for four—are distributed lightly across the site, allowing up to twenty people to inhabit the landscape as part of a shared living field.

A pair of conceptual diagrams guides the project. Living and nature are not treated as parallel domains, but as a continuous relationship. What is usually divided into house and landscape dissolves into a gradient: built rooms gradually open toward the Pampas itself. Within each unit, living space is understood not as a dominant room, but as a shared condition. Bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms are conceived as distinct yet equal volumes, placed together beneath a light roof. Gathered around an open living space, these rooms form a compact clearing where daily activities intersect with light, air and ground.

Read at a larger scale, this logic extends across the site. Individual units relate to one another through the continuity of open ground, so that living is experienced as movement between enclosed rooms and shared clearings rather than transitions between inside and outside. In this way, the site itself becomes a collective living room shaped by trees, wind and grass.

Material and section play a central role in articulating use, atmosphere and memory. Each program is assigned a material that reinforces its character while extending the logic of the existing buildings on site. Brick is primarily used for kitchens and dining spaces, where its mass and thermal presence support cooking and gathering; in many cases these volumes rise above the roofline, recalling chimneys within the landscape. Timber forms the bedroom volumes, remaining aligned with the roof plane to preserve controlled light, shade and retreat. Concrete defines bathrooms and service spaces, where walls stop short of the roof to create lateral openings for additional light and air.

Above, corrugated metal roofing combined with translucent panels ensures daylight reaches all spaces throughout the day. Clay tiles and metal sheets, drawn from the original house and buildings, form a continuous roofscape that unifies the project while allowing sectional variation. Through differentiated volumes held beneath a shared roof, the project reinterprets the material language of La Madreselva, creating a contemporary place for living, gathering and retreat that remains inseparable from the Pampas landscape.

Of Clearings and Rooms imagines living as a condition embedded within nature rather than placed beside it. At La Madreselva, dwelling is not conceived as an isolated object in the Pampas, but as a series of clearings in which daily life unfolds. Eight lodging units—six for two guests and two for four—are distributed lightly across the site, allowing up to twenty people to inhabit the landscape as part of a shared living field.

A pair of conceptual diagrams guides the project. Living and nature are not treated as parallel domains, but as a continuous relationship. What is usually divided into house and landscape dissolves into a gradient: built rooms gradually open toward the Pampas itself. Within each unit, living space is understood not as a dominant room, but as a shared condition. Bedrooms, kitchens and bathrooms are conceived as distinct yet equal volumes, placed together beneath a light roof. Gathered around an open living space, these rooms form a compact clearing where daily activities intersect with light, air and ground.

Read at a larger scale, this logic extends across the site. Individual units relate to one another through the continuity of open ground, so that living is experienced as movement between enclosed rooms and shared clearings rather than transitions between inside and outside. In this way, the site itself becomes a collective living room shaped by trees, wind and grass.

Material and section play a central role in articulating use, atmosphere and memory. Each program is assigned a material that reinforces its character while extending the logic of the existing buildings on site. Brick is primarily used for kitchens and dining spaces, where its mass and thermal presence support cooking and gathering; in many cases these volumes rise above the roofline, recalling chimneys within the landscape. Timber forms the bedroom volumes, remaining aligned with the roof plane to preserve controlled light, shade and retreat. Concrete defines bathrooms and service spaces, where walls stop short of the roof to create lateral openings for additional light and air.

Above, corrugated metal roofing combined with translucent panels ensures daylight reaches all spaces throughout the day. Clay tiles and metal sheets, drawn from the original house and buildings, form a continuous roofscape that unifies the project while allowing sectional variation. Through differentiated volumes held beneath a shared roof, the project reinterprets the material language of La Madreselva, creating a contemporary place for living, gathering and retreat that remains inseparable from the Pampas landscape.

“This proposal stands out for its inventive use of materiality as a tool for programmatic organization. The resulting aesthetic is both simple and vibrant, utilizing unique geometries that do not overwhelm the rural site. By combining a sensitive material palette with well-placed outdoor public zones, the project achieves a high-quality environmental design that is both functional and visually engaging.”

Iuliia Tambovtseva – Jayson Architecture

Emana, the Spanish term for “emanation,” conveys the idea of a gradual outflow in which a new condition expands from its origin while preserving its character.  Madreselva embodies this principle: its fragrance drifts outward, subtly filling the air and affecting the perception of space.

In the architectural context, this idea becomes a metaphor for how new structures grow from the existing ones. The inherent rhythm and proportions of the original buildings informed the new interventions. Added typologies such as metalwork details and characteristic openings were derived from the architectural syntax already present on the site, allowing the new volumes to inherit the spirit of the original while offering a contemporary interpretation.
Decorative metal screens play a key role. Their geometry reworks motifs found in metal elements of the estancia. These structures mediate between building and landscape: architectural in form yet receptive to nature. Climbing plants weave through them, creating a dynamic layer that allows the houses to blend into the natural context.
The unique atmosphere of the estancia develops not only through architecture but also through a program designed to support community experience, deepen the connection to the natural context, and reveal the cultural authenticity of the living gaucho tradition. The proposal introduces new program features. The main house includes the reception, store, and breakfast café; the second building offers a library/coworking and a wine-tasting space. The shed, beyond storage, now hosts an open platería workshop suitable for masterclasses as well as estancia maintenance, along with a restroom serving the pool area. Its architectural language continues in the new tea house, which combines a café-nursery, a dining area with two long communal tables, an expanded kitchen, and an open grill zone that turns the art of Argentinian asado into a part of the visitor experience. A field is left nearby for corrida-de-sortija, allowing guests to enjoy meals while watching the show. On certain days, this field can turn into a market with farmers’ produce. Residential units are arranged to offer both privacy and social exchange on shared terraces designed to accommodate more guests than each individual dwelling. In the evenings, guests can gather by the fire pit near the tea house or watch outdoor films beside the shed.

The landscape continues the core concept of revealing the estancia’s latent potential. Each area functions as both an independent scenario and part of an overall spatial narrative. The vegetable and herb garden provides a place of quiet connection with the earth. The grassland garden uses endemic plant species, reinforcing local identity and ecological resilience. The hammock area encourages contemplative rest, while the birdwatching platform opens visual links to the broader environment. The playground and hilltop wind installations introduce playful interaction with the environment. The pool area was renewed with a tiered wooden structure that allows it to transform into a yoga deck.Throughout all design decisions, the guiding principle is delicacy: new interventions blend gently with the landscape and existing architecture, preserving spatial openness and setting a direction for future development.

A common roof that not only shelters, but calls.
Beneath its shade, each person finds a place of their own without separating from the others, as in the old ranchos where life unfolded between shelter and an endless horizon. There, architecture did not seek to impose itself: it simply accompanied the rhythm of the countryside—the shifting light, the advancing wind, the silence that gathers people around the fire.

Our proposal embraces that attitude. It brings back the idea that the essential happens in the in-between: in the thresholds where mate is shared at dawn, in the pauses where the gaze drifts toward the distance, in the small shelters that bring community together like the gate or the fire circle. Intimacy is a small nucleus; the true strength lies in the outside that surrounds it.

The continuity of the roof orders the ensemble and, at the same time, accentuates the sky: a simple gesture that links the private and the communal, the domestic and the landscape. The materials adopt the sensitivity of the territory: clay that breathes and cools; trunks that, in their imperfect forms, support; straw and cane filtering light and becoming roof. They are materials that come from the site itself—just as the gaucho builds with what he has at hand. Ephemeral, noble, living materials that age without fear and reveal, in their wear, the life that has passed over them.

The project does not reproduce the rancho: it inherits its attitude, its way of being in the world. It is an architecture both humble and firm, grounded in the earth, proposing to inhabit the interstice—between shelter and open air, between sought solitude and inevitable company. A way of affirming that a minimal refuge can become collective without losing its essence, its bond with the land, or its ability to reveal the immense beauty of the landscape.

There is a path, preexistences on the land, and a way of life.
A path that accompanies, travels, widens and narrows; that connects the existing with the new; that invites and leads to different places: the fire pit, the lounge chairs under the shade, the games, the water, the festivities, the barbecues and the payadas. A path over which a roof settles: offering shade, guiding, linking. It is the seamstress of spatialgradients, stitching together scattered pieces into a single fabric and keeping them in communion.

That roof—typical, historical, simple—recalls the gaucho’s first dwelling: the rancho. A structure with a clear formal logic that nonetheless urges the space to open and transform. The rancho invites one to live outdoors; it proposes a rural Argentine way of life, where the landscape is not a backdrop but a companion.

The intervention is conceived not as a collection of isolated buildings, but as a narrative journey through time and nature. A strong longitudinal axis—the “Backbone”—organizes the site, stitching together the historical memory of the south with the contemporary intervention in the north. This spine transforms the landscape into a gradient of intensity:from the public activity of the entrance to the deep immersion of the lodging area.

Memory and Celebration: The strategy for the existing structures is one of preservation and specific resignification. The “Yellow House” becomes the administrative heart (Reception & Coworking), while the northern shed is reinvented as an Artisan Workshop, connecting tourists with local crafts. The original southern “Quincho,” with its mud walls, is preserved as an intimate refuge—housing a Library and Wine Bar for quiet contemplation.

Contrastingly, the new Social Pavilion emerges as the vibrant center of collective life. Organized around a great central hearth, it celebrates fire as the eternal soul of the living tradition. Extending outwards, a new North-facing Solarium embraces the existing Australian tank, respecting its original topography. This sunny platform functions as a vital connector—a “planned space for unplanned interactions” where locals and travelers converge naturally.

Flexible Inhabitation: To the north, the new lodging system is arranged to maximize views of the horizon. The architecture is defined by a modular grammar designed for flexibility. The units range from “Studio” typologies with retractable furniture to larger articulated clusters.

A key innovation is the “4+2 module,” which features a double-scale veranda—a generous semi-covered expansion that allows large families or groups to share a common space while maintaining independence. Raised from the ground on piles, the buildings touch the earth lightly, ensuring natural drainage.

The materiality seeks a dialogue between the rustic and the contemporary: exposed concrete and natural wood anchor the buildings to the land, blending seamlessly with the native vegetation of Jacarandás and Palo Borrachos. La Madreselva is thus reborn as a sanctuary where the vastness of the Pampa is not just viewed, but inhabited—framing the horizon from dawn to dusk.

A New Rural Paradigm: Ultimately, this project serves as a blueprint for the reactivation of the Argentine rural localities. Across the region, countless historic homesteads—silent witnesses to a history of production, dairy farms (tambos), and land work—lie abandoned. This proposal demonstrates that these forgotten infrastructures can be given a new opportunity. By transforming them into dynamic hubs for social interaction, we can reactivate their legacy, returning them to the vibrancy of their glory days while adapting them to a new era.

Main Project Ideas

1 — Inverted Urban Block

In our research on the regional urban pattern, we observed that nearby cities are based on a Hippodamian grid: a rational network of streets dividing land into equal parcels, with private life concealed within and public life expressed outward.

Our proposal acts as an anti-city. It transforms the typical hierarchy and inverts the urban block, turning the vast pampas into an intimate private landscape and shifting collective activity into an inward-facing courtyard.

This inversion offers visitors both solitude and belonging: uninterrupted visual access to the horizon and a shared central space for cultural interaction, dance, informal gatherings, and seasonal celebration.

2 — Main Axis

The main axis, around which our inverted plot (a unit of freedom) is organized, aligns with the sunrise of the longest day and the sunset of the shortest. It becomes a natural indicator of seasonal change within the pampas. Because the pampas stretch endlessly, sunrise and sunset hold special significance, revealing the landscape’s poetic and expressive qualities.

The pathway along this axis culminates in an elongated pool that captures the sunlight. This linear trajectory culminates in an elongated reflective pool, receiving and amplifying the sun’s path and reinforcing the relationship between land, light, and time.

Concept

Two programmatic volumes and a SPA complex were consolidated at the site’s core, forming a communal platform defined by a shared table and dance floor. This zone becomes the social heart of the complex, accommodating both intimate gatherings and micro-festivals.

Existing structures received new identities: — administration — storage — studio workspaces (photo and children’s ateliers)

A parking area was organized at the entrance. In the densely shaded zone, a landscape park was created to offer protection from the intense sun.

The SPA complex has a clear rectangular shape, cut through by a longitudinal pool that acts as an axis. Its main function is to capture light. At sunset, a ray of the sun falls precisely along the water’s surface, turning it into a glowing corridor. This effect sets the spatial dramaturgy and becomes the central event of the evening.

The residential units are rectangular in plan, with sloped roofs joined under a continuous canopy. At the center of the terrace stands a tree—a civic symbol of life and renewal, anchoring shared rituals. All bedrooms open toward the boundless pampas, emphasizing tranquility, sensory decompression, and the gradual tempo of rural horizon lines.

Interiors are open, breathable, and suffused with light. The primary domestic room—the kitchen–dining hall with fireplace and lounge—is designed as a climate-shelter and a narrative core, where day closes and community forms. Materiality prioritizes tactile honesty: stone, plaster, and metal, calibrated to withstand climate and express endurance rather than ornament.

The complex, while intimate in footprint, is responsively scaled to host 14–20 guests, ensuring generous spatial distance and maintaining a balance between withdrawal and collective presence.

ALONE TOGETHER is a slow-tourism retreat inspired by the ethos of the Gaucho—an existence defined by essentialism, mobility, and deep connection to the land. It offers an antidote to the modern traveler’s urban burden, allowing visitors to step back from the pace of city life and re-enter the primal rhythm of the Pampas. Here, freedom is experienced through minimal presence, heightened awareness, and intimate engagement with the horizon, solitude, and nature. The project is not merely a place; it is a spatial narrative where landscape, movement, and human experience converge, fostering renewal and liberation.

Breaking from traditional resort typologies that favor inward-focused spaces and singular daylighting, ALONE TOGETHER opens onto the landscape from multiple sides. Interiors extend outward, embedding each unit within the Pampas rather than isolating it within walls. Through softened boundaries, expansive sightlines, and the intentional integration of greenery, the design maintains privacy while cultivating openness, allowing guests to feel simultaneously alone and connected. Solid columns are replaced by slender cable supports, preserving visual continuity and enabling unobstructed activity beneath the roof, while reinforcing the lightweight, essential quality of the architecture.

The project’s organization mirrors the Pampas’ horizontal expanse and endless horizons. Units are placed under a single elongated roof, reducing visual clutter, while a rotational typology optimizes orientation for both privacy and panoramic views. Individual units are spaced rhythmically, forming organic circulation patterns that maintain coherence without impeding openness. Paths and gathering spaces link seamlessly with existing vegetation, softening boundaries and reinforcing a nature-centered experience.

Materials are natural, local, and reparable: thatch, timber, clay shingles, horsehair, and wool age gracefully to harmonize with the landscape. Thatch walls reduce perceived mass, while the lightweight mono-column and cable roof system visually floats above the land, keeping the units open to their surroundings. Non-primary functions, such as WC and service areas, are discreetly supported beneath the units, ensuring the main living spaces remain unobstructed and fully engaged with the environment.

By strategically placing human activity on slabs surrounding the units and reserving gathering spaces under the main roof, ALONE TOGETHER preserves the Pampas’ horizontality and openness while balancing shared and private experiences. The design embodies Gaucho’s ethos: essential, mobile, and in harmony with nature—offering a retreat where presence is felt, not imposed, and where freedom is measured by the depth of connection to land, horizon, and solitude.

The proposal aspires to create a vibrant community through a variety of spaces that encourages locals and tourists to meet, share and create experiences while preserving the existing features of the site and encouraging visitors to further appreciate its natural beauty. At the centre of the site, the pavilion serves as the meeting point, a central gathering place where a range of activities – metal working, water baths, barbecues, community dinners, guancho performances – can happen. In particular the outdoor amphitheatre serves as a flexible outdoor space designed to host open air markets, small scale concerts, events, festivals and cinema nights while the pavilion hosts a silver and metal workshop and a shop for local crafts. The other half of the pavilion is designed for moments of calm, reflection and wellness including a spa and wellness centre with two indoor bathing pools and a communal living room.

Standing within each bay ,guests can look onto the amphitheater from one side while the other frames a different view towards a unique part of the site. This includes the charming Australian tank that can be seen from a number of spaces whether users find themselves in the spa, workshop or communal living spaces. Pivoting doors in the workshop and living areas can be opened to give the sense of being completely immersed within the natural environment.

The Australian tank nestled on the hill around plants was an inspiration to recreate moments like this within our design, where water is introduced with landscaping to create spaces that encourage rest and relaxation for the guests coming into our site.

The two main paths that lead to the pavilion draws users from outside the site towards it while connecting it with the existing building cluster and with the two new clusters of guest cabins to the north. Smaller routes around the site lead towards landscaped features – garden beds, barbecue pits, a natural pool, and benches – which are designed to encourage longer walks through the lush vegetation.

The cabins are especially designed to connect with the outdoors. Cabins are arranged in clusters, and landscaped to encourage interaction between visitors.

Existing trees are retained to preserve the beauty of the existing site.

The aim is to affirm La Madreselva as a place for not only culture but a place for relaxation and enjoying the beauty of the Pampas landscape. Secluded pockets of calm are designed alongside a variety of vibrant activities that can be held in close touch with the natural environment.

Tierra Calma is conceived as a place of deep stillness within the agricultural expanse of San Antonio de Areco, where visitors leave behind the rapid pace of Buenos Aires and enter the quiet, contemplative landscape of the Pampas. Stays here are meant for slow immersion—short retreats of a weekend or a week—allowing guests to reconnect with rural calm and tradition.

At the territorial scale, the proposal introduces two complementary landscape systems. A strict rectangular grid, derived from the measured placement of existing rural structures, organizes the new ensemble with clarity and restraint, establishing a constructive dialogue with the existing buildings. Surrounding this ordered frame, a soft, organic landscape unfolds, shaped by native grasses, subtle earthworks, and curved paths. The juxtaposition of geometric order and natural fluidity allows the project to belong both to tradition and to the present moment.

To accommodate up to 20 guests, the project proposes eight lodging units of two types: a small unit for two guests and a larger unit for a family of three. These units are combined into grouped houses: two paired houses, each formed by one small and one large unit, and one four-unit house composed of two small and two large units. This system ensures an efficient footprint while offering different scales of privacy and flexibility. Each unit includes bedrooms, a living area, a kitchen, and a bathroom, ensuring a comfortable stay aligned with the brief. Each volume is organized around a transparent timber core containing kitchens, bathrooms, and storage. These shared programmatic components face the central plaza, reinforcing communal life—gatherings, music, shared meals—while the private rooms open toward the fields, ensuring quiet views and maintaining privacy between units.

Around the timber core, a thick clay envelope is constructed using a timber-frame system with rammed-earth infill and clay columns, forming walls 400 mm thick. Local and sustainable, this material breathes, stabilizes temperature, buffers sound, and connects the buildings directly to the soil of the Pampas.

The Australian Tank, preserved and enhanced with a light wooden platform, becomes the quiet center of the site. Opposite it, the existing barn is renovated and extended into a welcoming communal building for shared meals, informal gatherings, and cultural exchange.

Tierra Calma proposes an architecture of calm precision and grounded materiality—a retreat that respects tradition, amplifies the landscape, and offers visitors an authentic experience of the deep tranquility of the Pampas

The project grows from a reading of the site, where existing buildings, their roof typologies, and the open grounds already suggest an underlying order. Three roof forms—mono-slope, gable, and vaulted—establish the framework, each bringing its own scale and spatial trace. They link the original structures with the new ones, guiding how people cook, gather, rest, learn, and move across the landscape. Circular clearings and courtyards create places for meeting or pausing, allowing daily rhythms to unfold between sheltered interiors and open grounds. Within this structure, locals, weekend visitors, and travelers can share routines and experience the place with ease.

At the center of Tres Tejados, the courtyard becomes the primary open ground that organizes these relationships. Its geometry follows the alignments of the existing buildings, letting circulation and views settle around it. The surrounding structures support cooking, reading, workshops, resting, and communal events, framing the courtyard as a shared field of use.

The existing buildings are preserved and reprogrammed with restraint. The former dining house becomes an asado room anchored by a two-sided barbecue hearth serving both interior and garden. The accommodation building of La Madreselva turns into a reading and working room where visitors can encounter local narratives or spend time in contemplation. The vaulted structure becomes a malonga hall for dance, movement, and community activities.

New volumes follow the traces and approximate dimensions of the original roof typologies. Each brings its inherited function into the new arrangement. A gable-roofed pavilion introduces visitors to a semi-open activity space for events, demonstrations, or informal rest, acting as a threshold between landscape and courtyard. The largest gable-roofed structure hosts workshops tied to Areco’s craft traditions—leatherwork, metal engraving, and other practices of gaucho culture. Service areas and small platforms oriented toward the pool support events on the hill.

New accommodation units follow the same measured logic. Formed by two single-pitch volumes, they extend the directional language of the main gable structure and continue its inclination from the pool. Positioned slightly apart from the center, they ensure privacy while staying visually connected to the landscape. Rotated 45 degrees beneath their roofs, the units respond to natural clearings and avoid direct views toward the courtyard and paths, while maintaining open sightlines toward the pampas. Setbacks beneath elongated eaves frame distant views of the plain and make the horizon part of the interior experience.

The horse pit and exhibition area add another layer to the site. A compact exhibition beneath the vaulted roof introduces regional equine and gaucho culture, while a viewing terrace opens toward the lower pit where horses train. Their shelters occupy the level below, connected directly to the track.

Together, the buildings form a coherent settlement shaped by alignment, distance, and view, allowing the new and existing elements to grow from the landscape and operate as a continuous field of gathering, work, and retreat.

Designing within the horizontality of the argentinian Pampa—specifically in San Antonio de Areco, a place deeply rooted in history and indigenous rural tradition—compels us to reflect on contemporary modes of dwelling in relation to the communal life of the countryside, inherent to the folklore. The new architecture was required to respect the landscape of La Madreselva and establish a dialogue with the existing structures, adhering to the premise of -touching the earth gently-.

The atypical nature of designing a housing complex and common spaces in a rural setting offers us the chance to reinterpret the traditional gallery of the single-family home. In this new context, this individual element becomes collective, transforming into a threshold between the public and the private; a space for daily encounters.

Based on this concept, we configured a system of rings that organizes the general scheme of the proposal. The spatial grid that governs these rings is slightly rotated to align with the siting of the existing buildings, generating harmony within the intervention, and at the same time, allowing the tracing of a longitudinal axis that traverses the terrain, connecting the project to the site’s original access point.

The system is composed of two semi-covered rings and one open ring. The first semi-covered ring links the existing buildings, granting them formal and functional unity. The second semi-covered ring expands by one module to accommodate the residential program. Finally, the open ring functions as a nexus between the former two, intervening and integrating the old swimming pool into the complex, and connecting the new buildings with the pre-existences.

Within the interior of each ring, the anthropization of the natural space is developed while preserving the permeable qualities of the soil, endowing them with open-air community programs: fire as a reminiscence of popular tradition, the swimming pool as a vestige of the site’s own history, and the gazebo (glorieta) as both shelter and lookout.

The existing structures are refunctionalized, respecting the morphology and original structure of each building, envisioning uses that complement the proposal. The main house is recognized as the central element of the sector, taking on the function of reception and breakfast area. The secondary house, or “quincho”, is conceived as a residential service unit for maintenance staff or the estate owners. Finally, the corrugated metal storage shed reconfigures its envelope to adapt to a new use: a vegetable greenhouse to harvest raw materials for self consumption.

The new 1 and 2-bedroom residential units materialize in a compact typology oriented to the northeast and northwest (orientations favored for solar exposure and wind protection), integrating harmoniously with the surrounding landscape. The integral resolution of the construction system in timber responds to the premise of sustainable construction and the low CO2 emissions in its production.

La Madreselva is a site where landscape, memory, and rural culture coexist in quiet equilibrium. Our proposal grows from these existing conditions by adopting ROOTS as its guiding concept: a metaphor for origin, connection, and continuity. Roots express the way a place anchors itself, how it expands gently through the terrain, and how individual elements grow from a common core. This idea became the foundation for a spatial and architectural strategy in which the project does not sit on the land as an isolated object, but evolves from its inherent logic.

At the centre of the site lies the Australian Tank, a pre-existing water basin. Rather than treating it as a leftover feature, the project transforms it into the generative heart of the intervention. From this point, a branching system of pathways extends across the terrain like a network of roots. These paths weave among the trees and organize the circulation, guiding visitors toward all components of the program : the lodging units, the equestrian zone, the open-air cinema, the padel court, the grill and relaxation areas, and the existing buildings, now repurposed as the padel court , the restaurant  and the reception.

Each unit is assembled from a sequence of simple, legible elements: a roof supported by a regular system of beams, interior partitions that define the living spaces, large windows that open the rooms to the surrounding vegetation, and a continuous perimeter colonnade of evenly spaced wooden posts. This exposed frame establishes a calm structural rhythm, grounding the buildings while allowing them to remain visually permeable and closely connected to the landscape.

Apart from the accommodation, the project enriches the cultural and recreational life of La Madreselva. The equestrian area includes stables, a riding arena with a small tribune, and opportunities for lessons and guided excursions. The open-air cinema extends this public dimension, hosting regular evening screenings beneath the trees and welcoming both guests and local visitors.

Through its spatial layout, material expression, and relationship with the terrain, ROOTS proposes a settlement that grows from the land itself : an intervention shaped by context, modular clarity, and the slow rural rhythm of the Pampas. It is not a reproduction of rural life, but a continuation of it.

The concept of the project is directly connected to the cultural aspects and daily life of the gaúcho people. Gaúcho culture is centered around the traditional payada circles, which serve as the starting point for the development and spatial organization of the architectural program.

The payada is a ritual in which people gather around a fire to interact, listen to music, and enjoy a traditional drink. Inspired by this collective and circular gesture, the concept of LA MADRESELVA emerges from a central point that symbolizes gathering, belonging, and community. This core defines the project’s radial organization.

Drawing from the logic of traditional rural settlements, the project adopts a layout structured around a shared central space, where everyday life unfolds collectively. From this core, several axes radiate outward, guiding circulation paths, framing views, and distributing the accommodations. In this way, the project becomes a contemporary interpretation of rural dwelling, where the radial geometry symbolizes unity, balance, and the relationship between the individual, the community, and the landscape.

The radial form expresses an ancestral idea of collective shelter: each accommodation opens onto the surrounding landscape, converges toward the shared space, and connects to the whole through organic pathways that invite exploration and social interaction. The central square acts as the main articulating element, concentrating communal functions such as gathering areas and pedestrian circulation. Thus, the center becomes the heart of the complex, promoting cohesion, meeting, and a clear spatial reading.

The site layout respects the natural terrain and enhances views of the rural landscape, while promoting cross-ventilation and abundant natural light through multiple outward-facing openings. The volumes are oriented strategically to provide wide views from both social and private spaces, while ensuring privacy and solar protection. This approach ensures thermal comfort, efficient use of sunlight, and harmonious integration with the natural surroundings. In the rural context, the radial geometry strengthens the direct relationship between built space and the landscape, enriching the communal living experience.

The organic paths, as well as the interior of the accommodations, will be made of local natural stones, laid in a way that maintains soil permeability and promotes rainwater runoff. This solution reinforces the rustic character and integrates the paths into the landscape, promoting a smooth transition between the built space and the surrounding terrain. The stones are arranged irregularly and organically, following the topography and natural curves of the soil, which avoids large earthworks and maintains the spontaneous character of the implantation. In addition to the functional aspect, the stone pavement introduces an element of memory and tradition, referring to the old paths of farms and rural villages in the plains of the pampas. The architectural language is defined by the natural expression of the materials, BTC walls, wooden structure, and traditional ceramic tile roof, translating into a contemporary rustic architecture, in which materiality is not only decorative, but an essential part of the construction and architectural expression.