Articles by Valentina Díaz

Located in the Atacama Region, Chile, the Research Center of the Colla Indigenous Community in the municipality of Copiapó arises from the concrete need to have an infrastructure that supports development, innovation, and research programs driven by the community itself, including the cultivation and botanical study of medicinal plants from the mountainous canyons.

The proposal is developed on two angular volumes, which open toward the landscape, executed in black concrete. They rest and unfold forcefully upon the earth, seeking to establish a new order in the place on which we are situated.

The Shark House is located on the outskirts of Mexico City, in a neighborhood characterized by self-construction, exposed concrete block, and gradual growth, which has generated a landscape of irregular and constantly changing volumes. Instead of contradicting this condition, the project embraces it as a starting point, reinterpreting the irregularity through a volumetric composition that gives the impression of volumes built in different stages.

Architect Clara Crous and her partner Carles acquired the last available plot on one of the streets in Vilamacolum, a small village in the Alt Empordà. It is a triangular lot, in direct contact with the agricultural landscape that has historically defined the territory and also Carles’ biography, which is deeply connected to the countryside.

The Muro nursery school, in Mallorca, is located on elevated ground within a transitional area between the urban fabric and agricultural fields. In its immediate surroundings, landmarks of the landscape and collective life can be identified, such as an old marés stone windmill, the stands of the football field, and the built urban skyline. From its position, the site offers wide views of the area and its main references, including the Church of Sant Joan Baptista and the Convent of Santa Anna.

This project is born as a retreat space, conceived from introspection. A personal and private spa in the mountains of Tapalpa, where the architecture deliberately renounces the idea of a façade: there is no gesture towards the outside, no frontal composition. The building seeks not to be seen, but to be inhabited.

The 2026 Pritzker Price Award has been awarded this year to the Chilean architect of Croatian descent, Smiljan Radić Clarke. Born in Santiago, Chile, in 1965, his practice evokes a geography of extremes, shaped by the tectonic tension between the staggering weight of the Andes and the seismic instability of the territory. After graduating from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and pursuing further studies in aesthetics in Venice, Smiljan Radić Clarke established his base in Santiago. From there, he has developed one of the most singular visions in contemporary architecture. His work privileges the intensity of the moment through a fragile architecture. Within it, the building operates as a temporary and tactile refuge that places the spectator in a state of aesthetic uncertainty, oscillating between ancestral ruin and avant-garde artefact.