Hotel Explora, San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) 

Hotel Explora, San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) The Hotel Explora, designed by the Chilean architect Germán del Sol, has won the prize for the best work at the third edition of the Iber-American Architecture & Engineering Biennial Award, an event that since 1998 aims to bring closer, to promote and to disseminate the constructional panorama of Spain, Portugal and Latin America. Located in San Pedro de Atacama, the hotel is formed by a series of pavilions that blend with the spectacular landscape of the desert through a sequence of metallic decks. Close to the river Puritana, halfway between Antofagasta and Valparaíso, his residential program is rounded off by a thermal resort and stables, all linked by a series of wooden catwalks that evoke the rural paths that spontaneously emerge in the region. Built with walls of reinforced concrete and brick, and protected by copper-clad decks over a pine structure, the hotel gathers and reinterprets the constructional tradition of this area of northern Chile, creating a work of singular beauty. This same edition has also honored the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza for his professional career.