8 Highlights of Visiting Slantis in Uruguay & Argentina
Nov 20, 2025
Article written by: Nicolas Catellier, BIM Pure founder
I have been invited to visit Slantis' office for a 10-day trip in both Uruguay and Argentina. We’ve been collaborating on a few different projects in the last couple of years, and I was eager to visit the offices while travelling to South America for the first time. Uruguay is located to the south of Brazil and to the east of Argentina.
Buenos Aires and Montevideo are quite close to one another. You can take a ferry on the Rio de la Plata (River Plate), a major River of the region that connects to the Atlantic.
1- Discovering Buenos Aires
While in Buenos Aires, I was struck by how much the city felt like a major European capital, especially in central areas like Palermo and Recoleta. Large boulevards, monuments, mansard roofs, stone buildings. This isn’t a coincidence: the city was designed with this goal in mind in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Some buildings were even designed in Europe, then shipped and assembled here. The city is huge, with a metro population of about twelve million.
2- Yerba Mate Culture
Yerba Mate is a plant consumed as a hot beverage, mostly in Uruguay and Argentina, but also in the southern part of Brazil, Paraguay, and Chile. The caffeinated beverage is consumed by refilling the leaves with hot water throughout the day.
Yerba Mate is also a social ritual: cups are shared among groups. I enjoyed the bitter taste and ceremonial aspect, and even brought some back home.
3- Alfajores & Dulce de Leche
The dessert specialty of Argentina and Uruguay is Alfajores, tiny cakes made of Dulce de Leche. The team organized a tasting session to see which was my favorite. Pick your flavor: salty, fruits, dark chocolate, meringue, and more.
I am not a sugar beast, so my favorite turned out to be the slightly salty "Sal de Mar" by Havanna.
The other sweet specialty is Dulce de Leche, which is milk and sugar cooked slowly. It's tasted alone, in pancakes, and even sold as tiny cubes.
4- Beef & Asado
Asado is a wood-fired barbecue where meat is cooked slowly over embers instead of direct flames. Both Argentines and Uruguayans love their Asado steak, and they tend to eat late. Dinner is served at Spanish-style hours, so between 9 to 11 PM. It took a few nights for my body to adjust to those delicious late-night steaks.
5- Recoleta Graveyard Epic Mausoleums
Having a taste for creepy stuff, I enjoyed visiting the Recoleta Graveyard in Buenos Aires. It contains epic mausoleums for the rich families of the city.
6- Montevideo chill vibe, huge rambla
While Buenos Aires is intense, grandiose, and expressive, Montevideo felt more relaxed.
Montevideo is known for having the world's longest rambla (sea promenade). The sea is deeply connected to the city. People enjoy sitting by the beach after work to watch the sunset while sipping their Mate. In this image, I am posing with Mercedes next to the big Montevideo sign, next to the beach.
7- Bringing a piece of Canada into Latin America
Someone in my extended family owns a maple syrup sugar shack, so it was the obvious gift to bring to Andy and Mer, /slantis co-founders. I've also got some BIM Pure t-shirts and hats for the BIM team.
8- Slantis: the Google of Architecture?
I already knew of Slantis' strength beforehand, but experiencing it in person was something else. The company was started by Andy and Mer back in 2015, and it now has more than 130 employees. I've discovered a team of passionate architects dedicated to innovation.
Slantis has "atomic projects" for employees to spend time on research projects. They also organize fun initiatives, such as internal architectural competitions.
During an open office hours session hosted while I was there, a visitor mentioned to me that Slantis was the "Google of Architecture." The offices are gorgeous, located on the 23rd floor of the World Trade Center building in Montevideo, with a beautiful view of the entire city.
The biggest highlight wasn’t the delicious food, the gorgeous beach, or the architecture. It was all the great people I’ve met along the way. Everyone was incredibly warm and welcoming.
I'll conclude by saying a huge thank you to the entire Slantis team for setting up this trip. Special thanks to Mati for being my chaperone around the cities, events, and meetings.
We're about to conclude the BIM Manager's Journey live course, a collaboration with Slantis. This includes 8 live sessions about BIM content, project startup, QC/QC, mastering details, schedules, and more! We have two more episodes to go, and you can always catch replays of previous ones.
