Organized by the Italian multinational Rothoblaas, the BUILD THE (IM)POSSIBLE contest is a global platform for sustainable architecture. The competition highlights innovative timber-to-steel connectors and engineered wood solutions, such as CLT (cross-laminated timber), encouraging designers to create low-carbon footprint structures and advanced hybrid buildings.
This competition challenges designers, students, and other professionals to create innovative architectural solutions for hybrid buildings that combine timber engineering with different materials. Projects are judged on originality, functionality, and sustainability.
Representing the USACH School of Architecture, the team of Vicente Castillo, Matías Flores, Roque González, and Anahis Sanhueza won the international first prize in the Student & Researcher category.
The project, which addresses emergency housing solutions, was selected as a finalist in September and ultimately took the top spot. This global recognition culminated in an invitation to Bolzano, Italy, where the students presented their modular architecture project at the Rothoblaas international headquarters.
Reflecting on their success, the students highlighted that “the presentation was made in one of the blocks of the Mass Timber Seminar, before an audience of more than 100 professionals involved in timber construction. Several attendees came up to congratulate us and underscored the academic level of the project and the rigor of its development process.”
Milestone in professional training
The dean of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Dr. Aldo Hidalgo, also had words for the Usach students who took first place in this international competition. “My congratulations to the team on this achievement, which marks a milestone in their professional training and is a source of pride for our faculty, our university, and the country,” he said.
He also thanked Professor Jorge Mancilla, who accompanied the team as a mentor throughout each stage of the competition in 2025. “Over more than thirty years, our School of Architecture—now a Faculty—has consolidated an education focused on critical thinking and technical rigor, qualities that are reflected in each outstanding participation of our students and academics in national and international competitions,” he told Diario Usach.
Professor Jorge Mancilla emphasised that “the project addresses the issue of catastrophe and emergency, a line of work that has been established in the School for more than a decade. There is a consolidated conceptual and methodological basis, which is now expressed in this project."
He pointed out that “prefabrication and design processes are understood here as a holistic philosophy of architecture rather than a technical tool: from construction components and systems to a conscious approach to sustainability.”
Mancilla stated that “the students and this project are part of an academic and cultural heritage, of a way of understanding architecture that has been developed at the School.”
He concluded, “this recognition is undoubtedly an achievement for the students, but also, very clearly, an achievement for the School of Architecture.”