Hotel Bidasoa, located in Santiago, is the most sustainable Eco Boutique hotel in Latin America, with 16 ecological practices that reduce environmental damage and a constant commitment to making advancements in taking care of the planet. For this project, our office worked under the premise of utilizing materials in accordance to sustainability and, in addition, giving nature a leading role, as a way to raise awareness.

The concept of travel is the one that permeates its design through and through. Not only because of the fact that it’s a hotel, which houses people in transit, but because entering it is also traveling through time; it incorporates different aesthetics and the immigrant history of its founding family, who arrived in Chile on the legendary SS Winnipeg in 1939. Through its interior design, we sought to bring to life a Caribbean-esque geography, which sometimes alludes to classical Europe, and is sometimes simply fictitious; a dreamlike space that evokes a pristine and voracious wilderness.

In this exploration, we emphasized different Latin American aesthetics combined with styles like Art Deco, European elements like wooden boiseries, and certain bronze objects. Ceramic floors and mosaic walls recall a humid climate, like that of Central America, creating a sensation of freshness. Hand-painted walls were brought in from France to evoke exotic landscapes. This is all enhanced by a daring use of color that contributes to that singular atmosphere of an unclassifiable geography, turning Hotel Bidasoa into a meeting place with an active role in the city of Santiago.