Located just outside the Torres del Paine National Park in the Patagonia region, Chilean architect Felipe Assadi has built a series of 12 wooden hotel cabins on a Chilean hillside, that provide individual lodgings for what is called the Awasi Hotel. They are dotted across a steep hillside that slopes down to iceberg-strewn Lake Sarmiento, providing a base for excursions into the wilderness, offering guests the chance to glimpse at native pumas, wild llamas and rheas.

The lodges are covered inside and outside in planks of beech wood, framed by a black steel structure – a design based on traditional architecture of the region. According to the architects, the project was designed for “Those who would build it. We did not design anything that could not be constructed with local technologies and their precarious and scarce labour."

The spaces are furnished with neutral-toned seats and textiles, and warmed with wood-burning stoves, creating a cosy ambiance to every cabin. The region's inclement weather and the ultimate isolation from any nearby town meant that every space needed to be welcoming and hospitable to any guests needs. Each buildings are linked by winding pedestrian paths and partially elevated on stilts above the fragile and damp earth. But surrounding trees offer each building a degree of privacy.

Project – Felipe Assadi | Photography – © Fernando Alda