Chile’s northern Atacama Desert is one of the hottest, driest, places on earth, and a particular sensitivity to location is required of anyone building here. Scorched by day and chilled by night, the desert plateau is bounded by the rugged cordillera of the Andes to the east. The light is unusually strong, intensified by clear skies and very low humidity. Drawing on semi-vernacular forms and passive methods of environmental control, this Explora Hotel for adventurous travellers is a highly poetic response to light, landscape and climate.

The building’s elements are arranged in the manner of an oasis settlement, with dispersed buildings arranged around outdoor spaces planted with trees such as carob, oak and pepper. Conceived as an elegant, hospitable haven, Explora Hotel is siting on the edge of the town, clearly distinguishes it as an object building in the landscape. It echoes the Pre-Columbian custom of using built structures to mark and define places, so establishing multiple relationships with nature. The long horizontal volumes are minimally articulated with a continuous strip of window, emphasizing the simple, monolithic building form. At present the building can accommodate 100 guests in 50 rooms, but in the future it will be expanded.

It consists of a main two-storey block, with four adjoining single-storey guestroom wings. The narrow wings snake and splay off to enclose a trapezoidal patio courtyard. Responding to the form and substance of the land, Walls zigzag around this plaza, creating dazzling patterns of light and shade and give the complex an elemental, geological quality and humanizing the scale. The massive, white rendered volumes are crowned by layers of wide, overhanging roofs clad in strips of timber and copper. The main building is raised on a platform four meters above ground level, so that the roof of the bedrooms provides a horizontal point of reference for the eye and the vast expanse of the Atacama Desert can be seen in all its glory. At some distance from the building is the riding stables, which open on to shaded walkways arranged around a large, irregularly-shaped plaza.

Dining and social spaces are placed on an elevated piano nobile level in the main building block, with vistas out over the guestroom wings to the desert and distant mountains. Guestroom wings are also slightly raised above ground level, to frame and isolate views.The generous, irregular volumes of the entrance hall, bar, restaurant and lounge are languidly disposed round a more tightly planned L-shaped service core of kitchens, offices, and staff dining room. The two zones are separated by a wide internal street lit by tall clerestory windows. Drawing on traditional Atacaman forms, the organic fluidity of the building plan blurs distinctions between public and private, interior and exterior realms. Verandas and terraces wrap around the piano nobile, acting as informal extensions of the principal spaces. Below, at ground floor level, lies a labyrinth of staff quarters, service areas and a small exhibition space devoted to artifacts from the region.

One challenge for the architects was to control the intense desert sunlight which is particularly strong in this area of very low humidity. To soften the solar glare, gently arching, overhanging roofs protect terrace areas, they sit above flat roofs. Overhanging sections of the roof are constructed from timber slats with slight gaps in between which filter and diffuse the sun’s glare in a delicate, shimmering pattern of striated shadows. The roof structure consists of two sections: a curved upper part and a lower flat roof. Light and air circulate between the two layers and into the spaces below through a series of skylights.

The buildings have poured-concrete foundations, white colored wooden walls and copper-clad wooden roofs. These materials are left naturally rough so that the hotel becomes part of the desert landscape with age. Against the predominantly white walls, color is used sparingly, applied to elements that can be touched, such as doors, window frames and furniture. A palette of bold red, blue, green and gold, hues commonly used in vernacular buildings, invigorates the penumbra, bringing life and colour to the cool, luminous spaces.

Compressed between earth and sky, the building becomes part of the Atacama landscape. Visitors can climb on to roof terraces to commune with nature. Beneath their feet, the copper-clad roof forms meld and merge with the desert. Explora Hotel is a poetic architecture of place that seeks to embody the very particular culture and spirit of Atacama. It is also architecture of ecology, of enlightened mediation between extremes in response to light, landscape and climate.

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