The site

The site, known as Condor Valley for the condors that nest in the gorges and mountain ridges that surround it, is comprised of two adjoining estancias, La Bodega and El Tipal, which together cover about 65,000 acres. It is located in the center of Salta, the northernmost province of Argentina, straddling the foothills of the Andes and the edge of the Chaco forest.

The owners, determined to preserve the beauty of this remote land while transforming the ancient languishing ranch into a viable enterprise, have focused on adventure eco-tourism and sustainable agriculture as their main development strategies. Birding, white-water rafting, fishing, horseback riding can range from the bucolic to the extreme, while restoring the ancestral wine-growing identity of La Bodega is a cherished goal. They invited us to visit and sketch ideas to house some of these potential programs.

Hosted and guided by Martin Pekarek, a local anthropologist who manages the ranch, and his team of gauchos, we trekked through ridges and brush, rafted rapids and waded streams to explore sites for possible projects and become familiar with the terrain and ecosystems. We also travelled through the surrounding areas, from the Andes Highlands to the wine country of Cafayate Valley, learning about the culture and more specifically, the local building materials and craft.

We divided our group in teams to design five projects that we identified as having the greatest potential: the restoration and expansion of the colonial house, a two hundred year old structure, as the main lodging; a small winery; a fishing campsite; a horseback riding station with stables; and a condor and wildlife observatory. We then returned to Buenos Aires and spent the final two weeks designing the projects in a charrette mode.

The first week we developed concepts working in a studio at the Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo of the Universidad de Buenos Aires, where we were joined by five local students of the Poiesis Institute, whose director, Jorge Sarquis, hosted us and provided local faculty support for crits and mid review. Then we moved to “our own” studio at the Sociedad Central de Arquitectos, where we further developed the projects and held a final review.

Besides the studio work, we attended lectures about the City and modern architecture in Buenos Aires by urbanist Alicia Novick and architectural historian Pancho Liernur. We toured the city and its architecture, and got immersed in the intense urban experience of this bustling metropolis, one of the most vibrant cultural centers of Latin America.

We also visited Rosario, where young architects are building some of the more interesting work in Argentina, among them Rafael Iglesia, Gerardo Caballero and Marcelo Villafañe, who showed us their studios and their work; and La Plata, home of the Casa Curutchet, a seminal work of Le Corbusier that has ispired generations of Argentine architects.
In a four week crash course in Argentine culture, from the metropolitan to the provincial, from the traditional to the global, from the urban in all its different scales to the rural and the wild, we learned about architecture and building, urban density and diverse ecosystems, music and art, food and wine; we made new friends, slept little and managed to produce the work we are exhibiting.