{"id":8968,"date":"2026-06-03T19:35:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T19:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/angesfinanciers.org\/?p=8968"},"modified":"2026-06-05T15:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T15:11:11","slug":"to-and-palma-design-museum-as-climatic-infrastructure-for-panama-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/angesfinanciers.org\/index.php\/2026\/06\/03\/to-and-palma-design-museum-as-climatic-infrastructure-for-panama-city\/","title":{"rendered":"TO and Palma design museum as “climatic infrastructure for Panama City”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Panama<\/div>\n

Mexico City-based studios TO and Palma<\/a> have designed an extension for Museo de Arte Contempor\u00e1neo de Panam\u00e1 in Panama, informed by the country’s status as a place of exchange. <\/span><\/p>\n

The expansion concept centres activity around a shaded plaza area, rejoining the thresholds of Panama City’s\u00a0downtown commercial core with its adjacent residential Boca La Caja neighbourhood in a direct gesture that ties the impetus for art exhibitions to climatic considerations and the public identity.<\/p>\n

“Rather than relying on historical references, the architecture responds to cultural patterns that continue to shape everyday life in Panama,” Palma<\/a> co-founder Diego Escamilla told Dezeen.<\/p>\n

\"Panama
Palma and TO have won a competition for the design of Museo de Arte Contempor\u00e1neo de Panam\u00e1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“The proposal is conceived as a cultural and climatic infrastructure for Panama City. Rather than treating the museum as an isolated object, we envisioned it as a civic platform capable of strengthening the relationship between the city, the neighborhood, and the waterfront,” Escamilla said, referencing Panama as a place of exchange.<\/p>\n

“In this sense, Panamanian identity is expressed not through representation, but through performance: the way the building responds to climate, fosters community, and creates spaces for collective cultural life.”<\/p>\n

Programmatically, this includes a flexible plaza area with native vegetation and urban furniture whose activities are famed by porticoed commercial areas that are arranged into terraces.<\/p>\n

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The design includes ceramic-clad screens that extend away from the building<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Public use of the excavated plaza area, which includes an events hall and caf\u00e9 space, is extended into the lobby of a porous and welcoming ground floor repatriation.<\/p>\n

The plan, selected through competition, responds to the need for independent circulation and staff privacy with a divided first floor, placing museum offices, a storage vault, service areas, and a freight lift to one side, and a public wing with a library-like archive, children’s room, print workshop and meeting spaces to the other, both finished with vegetated balconies.<\/p>\n

\"Panama
It will have green balconies<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The final floor is designed as a free-plan exhibition level \u2013 up to seven galleries can be enabled thanks to its spatial geometry and the use of large structural spans.<\/p>\n

An additional gallery space will connect directly to the main lobby and the ground-floor events area through a triple-height volume and sculptural courtyard.<\/p>\n