Isay Weinfeld

Las Piedras Fasano is a hospitality complex in Punta del Este, Uruguay. It combines private homes, hotel bungalows and other amenities – spa, equestrian center, golf and polo fields and a 3-km beach stretch on the riverside of Arroyo Maldonado -, spreading across vast 480 hectares dominated by a dramatic and dazzling landscape: arid, rocky, with sparse low vegetation.
The scenery inspired the previous owner to erect, with the rocks found in the area, his home and studio. Upon our arrival to the first land reconnaissance visit, we had no doubt those buildings – rustic and of unique workmanship – should be preserved.
The detailed study of the program/client brief led us to resort to scattering the units making up the complex, conceived and distributed as isolated modules that “landed naturally” on the terrain, such as the rocks themselves – a solution intended at preventing the erection of massive buildings or volumes that might excessively interfere with the landscape.
Very few interventions were made to the studio – built on the highest point of the property and offering prime views of the surroundings – in order to fit the Fasano Restaurant: internally, the wooden walls, floors, doors, windows and ceilings were kept; externally, a new wooden deck, at a lower level, was added to the existing one.
Interconnected to the studio, a completely new volume was built, to house the kitchen and supporting facilities: made of raw concrete and slightly lower than the stone house, it establishes a respectful relationship with it and does not stick out in the rocky landscape in any way.