ocean reef private development.
a four-thousand-square-metre private development on a panamanian reef island. the brief asked for sea views from every room, and a cooling bill that did not punish the asking.
cooling load reduction · in construction.
headline metric to be confirmed post-occupancy.
what the climate asked for.
the site is exposed: an artificial reef island on panamá's pacific coast, with constant east-to-west onshore wind, salt in everything, and an aspirational brief asking for rooms to look at the same water.
east-facing glass is the easiest way to spend money on air conditioning in this climate, and the brief was about to spend it. the work was to keep the views and cut the bill anyway.
how we worked the problem.
the master section was redrawn so that east glazing sat behind a deep planted veranda, a shaded outdoor room rather than a curtain wall. the planting was specified for the salt and the wind from the start. the model resolved the trade between view, shade, and cooling on a room-by-room basis instead of a building-wide rule.
the veranda is structural, ventilated, and continuous. it became the project, in a sense, everything else followed.
each move contributes incrementally.
performance is not one heroic intervention. it is the small decisions, added up. each row below is a number the model produced.
views earned by shade, not borrowed against the cooling bill.