Sondondo is an inter-Andean valley located between 3,500 and 4,500 meters above sea level. Inhabited, transformed and modelled since ancient times by the local rural communities, an extraordinary cultural landscape has been created through their particular relationship with the environment. Since the pre-Hispanic settlements (Wari 600 AD), through colonial indigenous “reductions”, to the villages of vernacular architecture, which are at the foundation of contemporary populated centres, the territory has been variously and successively settled, inhabited and transformed. Its vernacular architecture has evolved at multiple scales, from domestic architecture to urban structures. It has created spaces for agriculture and livestock herding, and the spectacular agricultural andenerías (farming platforms and terraces) that have shaped the territory for centuries. The latter simultaneously ...