In the quiet depths of Argentina’s Lake District, Casa Gallareta reveals itself not through grand entrances or overt gestures, but in fragments, small cabins scattered across a steep, wooded hillside in Villa La Angostura. Designed by OJA (Organic and Joyful Architecture), the 250 m² project moves away from centralized hospitality models, offering guests a distributed experience in direct contact with the landscape.
HOUSING
For architect Juan Segundo Díaz Dopazo, the project strikes personal chords. Raised in Patagonia, he returned to the region with his partner María Ayelén Olivieri Martinez to design a guest complex for his own family. Rather than clear the forest, the architects worked within it, placing each cabin in a natural opening beneath the native Coihue and Arrayanes trees. No tree was cut down. No view was forced open. The land itself decided the layout.
The result is a series of “landscape cabins,” each designed for two to three guests. While they share proportions and core elements, subtle shifts in massing, placement, and detail allow each one to respond to its specific site condition. The design uses controlled variation rather than uniformity, allowing the forest, not the architect’s ego, to drive the rhythm.
Inside, the cabins unfold across split levels that enhance vertical movement within compact footprints. Every space is anchored by large, asymmetrically placed windows that cut into the façade to reveal sky, tree trunks, or glimpses of the lake below. Privacy is preserved by orientation rather than by walls, and in the largest cabin, a soaking tub turns a forest view into a cinematic moment of retreat.
Building on such terrain meant working with constraints: steep slopes, dense vegetation, and narrow access. OJA’s response was a hybrid system, reinforced concrete foundations topped with lightweight, dry construction. Materials were prefabricated and installed with minimal disturbance. It’s a technical solution born of a deeply emotional agenda: to protect the place that inspired it.
From the outside, the cabins are defined by their weathered black skin, charred eucalyptus finished using the Shou Sugi Ban method. The char layer acts as a protective membrane and a visual anchor, letting the buildings recede into the density of the forest. Accents of lapacho wood, glass, steel, and exposed concrete round out the palette, hard-wearing materials suited to Patagonia’s extremes.
In contrast, the interiors lean into warmth and cohesion. Everything, from wall panels to built-in furniture, is crafted from Guatambú, a pale wood selected for its consistency and subtle grain. Its use across surfaces flattens visual noise and amplifies daylight, allowing the material itself to function as spatial quiet.
Casa Gallareta is a study in restraint, site-awareness, and emotion. It speaks in a soft architectural voice, one shaped by personal connection, logistical discipline, and respect for place. For OJA, it also serves as a foundation for future practice: a modular, materially honest system shaped not for replication, but for responsiveness. This is hospitality built at forest scale.
