The transfer of typologies, technologies and materials promoted by development programmes does not usually take into account the solutions of form and function with which the indigenous communities of Central Chaco give meaning to their architecture. The contents and designs promoted from a centralized management of decisions are implemented by agencies with the capacity to influence policies that are unaware of the local conditions and the trajectories of the peoples on which they have an impact. On the other hand, it will be shown how design education in Argentina focuses on other issues. From different theoretical guidelines of Latin American critical thought, the need to decolonize the principles of modernity towards alternatives where the point of origin is to be found in subaltern knowledge will be raised. Within this framework, the work explores the logics of the social construction of habitat through participatory design processes that allow the communities to be elevated as actors with their own voice and capacity to design programmes with local identity, through action research projects in the indigenous territory of Lhaka Honhat in the province of Salta, Argentina.