El Cadillal Lookout Hotel

Project idea

Concept: breaking / entering the mountain (from the shadows to light) + allegory to the past and history with vertical element (lighthouse between the yungas, reminiscing the chimney from the dam). Objective: discover the natural landscape through routes and spaces of rest and contemplation among the topography, which in turn frames the visuals to the dam, generating sensations in users.

Project description

This graduation project has been designed from the idea of a hotel in the shadows of nature, inserted in the Yungas (mountain jungles) of Tucumán, Argentina. The site “El Cadillal”, is a tourist village under development, which has a lack of accommodation infrastructure and unsatisfied demands that limits its tourist and economic growth. We propose, in front of the dam “Celestino Gelsi”, this lookout hotel, that aims to connect with nature and discover the richness of the landscape through sensory tours and the architecture. It has recreational, gastronomic and meeting activities, thus generating a tourist node, which in connection with the recently renovated amphitheater and chairlift sector, enhances the coast of the dam as a place of tourist attraction. By promoting it as a tourist place, the aim is to increase the demand for services and generate greater opportunities for economic growth for the community and the province.

Technical information

The project intends to show the duality between its solid-opaque structure and materiality (shadows) and its glazed enclosures (light and visuals framing) the resistant structure is solved in concrete, alluding to the stone and solidness of the mountain, thus freeing the glazed enclosures of loads that are not their own weight.