ArchDaily Student Award Winners Propose Regenerative Salt Landscapes for Lithium Extraction in Argentina
A team of architecture students from the National University of Córdoba has won an ArchDaily Student Project Award for a thesis project addressing lithium extraction in Argentina's Olaroz Salt Flat. The project, by Ezequiel Lopez, Maria Victoria Echegaray, and Agustina Durandez, proposes a regenerative landscape that balances industrial lithium mining with the preservation of ancestral Kolla and Atacama communities. The Olaroz Salt Flat lies within the Lithium Triangle, a high-altitude region shared with Bolivia and Chile that holds about 54% of the world's lithium reserves. The students reject the binary between extraction and preservation, instead designing spatial and technical mediations to allow coexistence. Their work stems from sustained research into territories peripheral to architectural discourse, informed by territorial and socio-economic realities.
Key facts
- Ezequiel Lopez, Maria Victoria Echegaray, and Agustina Durandez won an ArchDaily Student Project Award.
- The project is a thesis for the Bachelor's in Architecture at the National University of Córdoba.
- The Olaroz Salt Flat is in Jujuy province, northern Argentina.
- The Lithium Triangle contains roughly 54% of the world's lithium reserves.
- The region is shared with Bolivia and Chile.
- Kolla and Atacama communities inhabit the area.
- The project proposes regenerative salt landscapes to mediate between industrial extraction and ancestral land use.
- The design rejects the binary between extraction and preservation.
Entities
Artists
- Ezequiel Lopez
- Maria Victoria Echegaray
- Agustina Durandez
Institutions
- ArchDaily
- National University of Córdoba
Locations
- Argentina
- Olaroz Salt Flat
- Jujuy
- Lithium Triangle
- Bolivia
- Chile
- South America
- Buenos Aires