Alterra Pinamar Container Glamping

In a picturesque area of coastal Argentina, 250 miles south of Buenos Aires, you’ll find Alterra Pinamar Container Glamping. It’s home to several shipping container cabin rentals, but the site and surrounding area also have a history worth exploring too.

It all started back in 1943 when Argentinian Architect Jorge Bunde started executing his vision for a beautiful garden city. He aimed to recreate what he found during his studies in Germany, the integration of beautiful forests with thoughtful urban planning.

Bunde named the new city Pinamar, a combination of the Spanish words for ‘pine’ and ‘sea’. The name is fitting as the city sits on the seaside and is inside of a pine tree forest. But that’s where things get interesting.

When Bunde first started his project, there was no forest. Instead, the ~6700-acre seaside parcel was covered in barren sand dunes. But when you fast forward 80+ years later, millions of planted trees have matured into an expansive forest.

With this foundation set, the city of Pinamar began to expand and flourish. Fast forward to 1997, when renowned Argentinian Architect and Artist Clorindo Testa selected the area for his new art gallery. Surrounded by Pinamar trees, the modern building was a place to display artwork and allow painters, architects, designers, and photographers to work.

We once again move forward in time to 2011. New owners including Silvana Spina wanted to expand the size and usage of the property. Initially, the plan was for apartments, but the local council denied them permission. Instead, they embarked on creating the first luxurious glamping retreat on Argentina’s coastline. Working with architect Julio Falbo, they decided to use shipping containers for the majority of the necessary construction.

The site plan included three container cabins (red, blue, and green) set amongst the trees on a little less than one acre of land. They also included a heated pool along with plenty of patio space and access to the old art gallery.

Each cabin makes use of two 20-foot shipping containers from the Port of Buenos Aires, combined into an L-shape. Numerous windows and sliding glass doors were cut into the container skin, and a bathroom, bedroom, and kitchenette were installed. Heating and cooling systems were added along with recycled insulation panels.

The container cabins are bright and airy yet modest and unassuming, encouraging visitors to enjoy the outdoors as much as the spaces inside. The containers were positioned to minimize removing trees, which was certainly easier to do with the containers’ inherent design flexibility.

There is so much design history here, from the macro to micro levels. The shipping container homes are just the finishing touch on land that has been intentionally and sustainably developed over decades to create the peaceful retreat that exists today.

And the integration of containers into the art gallery’s land marries the unique design and eco-conscious aspects of container construction in a way we don’t often see. What a cool project!