In our current era, where human activity is the main cause of planetary change, there’s growing concern about how our cities and towns function. Think of a city as having a “metabolism”—it consumes resources to be built and to operate.
This book presents a new way to analyze a city’s environmental impact. It introduces a method to track the complete lifecycle of all the materials and energy a city uses. This process follows them from the very beginning, where resources like water, energy, and raw materials are first taken from the environment; through their use, as they are transformed to construct and run the city; and all the way to the very end, to see what happens to them after buildings are demolished and systems are no longer in use.
By creating this full “cradle-to-grave” picture, designers and planners can identify key problems—like hidden energy consumption and carbon emissions—and develop innovative solutions to create more efficient and environmentally friendly cities.
“Metabolism is a glimpse into the future of design – an excellent dive into economic and design thinking that will be required to understand and address climate issues as well as water and material shortages that we know lie ahead. The authors have captured the thinking that we will need to evolve the systems to survive the challenges of the future, which are formidable. Highly recommended.”
— James B. Blackburn Co-Director, Severe Storm (SSPEED) Center, Rice University.
Nestled in the vibrant heart of the Bronx, the Banknote residential project is a bold fusion of contemporary design and historical homage. This striking new construction addresses the city’s pressing need for affordable housing, offering spacious two-bedroom units averaging 900 sq ft. The building’s angular geometry harmoniously integrates with the surrounding urban landscape, while wrapping around the original structure to retain elements of the historic façade—such as pilasters, materiality, and expansive arched windows—juxtaposed with sleek, modern rectangular windows and balconies.
This architectural dialogue creates a visually compelling narrative that balances past and present. Green living takes center stage with a vertical garden wall and lush surrounding landscaping, which extends to ground-level amenities that encourage a healthy, community-driven lifestyle, including sports and garden areas. With its prime location offering easy access to public transportation and local amenities, Banknote exemplifies a modern vision of urban living that honors both history and sustainability.
We imagine a VICTORIAS NEW GOVERNMENT CENTER that fosters an awareness on how our buildings and bodies interact with their surroundings.
Our proposal for the VICTORIAS NEW GOVERNMENT CENTER foregrounds biospheric designso that the architecture can go beyond sustainability management and serve as ademonstration of the city’s ambitious Climate Action Plan. We envision VICTORIAS NEW GOVERNMENT CENTER that joins net-zero construction with nature-based designs solutionto create public spaces that demonstrate how our buildings are not mere containers butalso metabolic machines that process water, waste, energy, and air.
VICTORIAS registers an average of 234 days a year with rainfall. The city’s tropical monsoon climate climate reveals the extreme symptoms of our current environmental regime. During periods of highest heat, precipitation has been dropping while the greater frequency of thunderstorms has raised the risk of climatic variation from flooding and drought.
We have used data related to humidity and temperature to design the VICTORIAS NEW GOVERNMENT CENTER so that the building that actively interacts with its users and its environment. We have designed a building with heat dissipating chimney that passively cools the interior using natural ventilation and thermal mass differentials between the water, ground and air.
We have designed rain catchment umbrellas that harvest water, storing it for future use in underground cisterns and flood retention ponds. We have placed the VICTORIAS NEW GOVERNMENT CENTER within a landscape of pleasure gardens, and event spaces designed to manage rainwater and provide a matt of cool air for the building. The roof the VICTORIAS NEW GOVERNMENT CENTER works as a solar farm undulating like a series of palms to offer shade for the building users. The façade screen out the heat with a filigree structure of colorful pipes that support climbing plants.
In short we have customized the walls, floors, and ceiling assemblies to reduce the heat island effect and ensure that the VICTORIAS NEW GOVERNMENT CENTER becomes a hallmark of progressive green public building design in the world.
Our proposal for the VICTORIAS NEW GOVERNMENT CENTER doubles as creative hub with spaces for exhibition, performance and discussion providing platforms for community engagement with the process of managing the city. We envision a building whose architecture can open to support events to spur municipal growth and community awareness. Our design offers indoor venues such as the food d=foods center with a botanical courtyard giving the city a flexible and transformable floor plan with lots of resources for people to connect with one another. We believe that VICTORIAS NEW GOVERNMENT CENTER can engage physical experience as a life-changing event and present architecture as a means of mediating between community and culture.
Bacolod is the next big story. We are transforming Bacolod into a super city by building mobility and resiliency infrastructure.
Bacolod’s blue-green infrastructure will be water-conscious, managing stormwater through bioswales and river promenades connected to coastal parks that support sustainable aquaculture while promoting tourism with spaces for recreation and community engagement.
Bacolod’s’ new mobility infrastructure will foster a more connected lifestyle providing essential services within 15-minutes by developing a multi-modal transit hub, a coastal highway, boulevards with tree-lined sidewalks, bike paths, a BRT system and smart city technologies, from eco-sensors to energy-efficient lighting.
Three growth zones will drive Bacolod’s rise as a regional powerhouse for commerce and industry.
First, the North City, where Pulo and Mandalagan Creek merge into Catmon River, creating a natural framework for an international port, ferry terminal, eco-industrial park, and Agri-industrial logistics complex, connecting industries with local ecosystems for optimized growth.
The second, Center City, anchored by a 12,000 sq mt multi-modal transit center supporting 50 buses, linked to a brand-new 26,000 m² fresh market with 300 parking lots to ensure a convenience and integrated to new housing options from towers to townhouses for a wide range of markets is a model of thoughtful urbanization, blending functionality, accessibility, and sustainability to create a vibrant core for Bacolod’s future.
The third, South City between Lupit & Magsungay River supports a tech district featuring start-up hubs, maker spaces, and a digital nomad village. A coastal road and waterfront park complete this lifestyle-focused district.
These three growth zones are the backbone of Bacolod’s vision of sustainable growth, supported by custom-tailored urban planning guidelines for high-, medium-, and low-density urban development that redefines connectivity and connects communities to their ecosystems setting the stage for a more robust economy.
We see a new age dawning for Bacolod wherein the super city functions as an urban-rural network of work, live, play, and make creating opportunities for innovation, investment, and community building.
This vision is ambitious, but ambition is what drives transformation. Together, we have the power to shape Bacolod into a city that inspires and leads. I invite you to be part of this journey—a journey to craft a city where design meets purpose, and innovation meets heart.
As part of a new generation of buildings being built in regeneration landscapes, CAZA’s design for a community center at La Salle Botanical Gardens in the Philippines contributes to a location affected by a 20th-century volcanic eruption. The multipurpose cluster of organic volumes comprises event spaces, a chapel, grottos, and back offices, all linked together by a series of pergolas. The 7,500 sqm proposal features dome vaults, catenary arches, and an insulated sky box built out of glass, concrete, and patented 3D-printed bricks that reduce the building’s carbon footprint by 70%.
CAZA imagines a new way of vertical urban living in Manila, Philippines. Anchored on community and access to nature, the Industria Tower is a seismic resistant residential building with recreational zones dispersed throughout. The podium base houses wellness spaces and plants that filter air and reduce heat gain for the reinforced concrete structure. Atop the green podium is an elegant tower clad in a lightweight metal mesh with strategic punctures and cantilevered balconies looking out to the river and city views.
Located in Manila in the Philippines, the Delgado Mausoleum offers sanctuary and serene remembrance amidst a larger housing complex with a series of memorial gardens and pathways. Bidirectional brick parabolic cones are tilted at different angles to create a monolithic structure that resists tensile stress—an ambitious endeavor to develop a sense of awe, foster an emotional response, and embody a past once lived.
The Metabolism of Settlement Coexistences is a book by Peter G. Rowe, Claire Doussard and Carlos Arnaiz about a method for describing and assessing the metabolic contributions of various kinds of settlement co-existences, or basic manners in which humankind assembles itself into urban and quasi-urban constructed circumstances. This is an ORO publication.
Carlos Arnaiz delivered a lecture at Nikken’s office in Tokyo. He addressed the Members in support of AIA Japan’s Continuing Education Services (CES) Program on June 14, 2024. Titled “Living In An Era Of Disruption”, his talk examined the ecological and technological disruptions that are affecting how we think about and alter our built environment today. Suggesting ways to navigate through these disruptions, Carlos presented some of the firm’s latest projects ranging from the design of ecological masterplans to civic and community centers in the Philippines.
CAZA’s Santuario de La Salle won the 2024 Popular Choice of the Architizer A+Award in the Religious Buildings & Memorials category.
The design is a new, inclusive religious space nestled within a larger campus masterplan we created for De La Salle University in Biñan City. In a bustling university campus, Santuario de La Salle allows people to connect with their faith, their religious community, and nature. It weaves together culture and ecology, offering congregants a different idea of spiritual inclusiveness.
We’re pleased to share that CAZA’s Founding Principal Carlos Arnaiz is on the jury panel for the 2024 edition of the BIG SEE Architecture and Interior Design Awards – Grand Prix Winners.
We’re delighted to support BIG SEE’s efforts in promoting designs from Southeast Europe, and sharing the region’s innovations with the rest of the world. The awardees will be announced at the BIG Architecture Ljubljana Festival on May 15-16, 2024.
We are excited to announce that CAZA’s project Santuario de La Salle has been selected as an Architizer A+Award Finalist in the Religious Buildings & Memorials category.
The design is a new, inclusive religious space nestled within a larger campus masterplan we created for De La Salle University in Biñan City. In a bustling university campus, Sanctuario de La Salle allows people to connect with their personal faith, their religious community, and with nature itself. It weaves together culture and ecology, offering congregants a different idea of spiritual inclusiveness.
To vote for Santuario de La Salle among the five shortlisted entries worldwide, click here.
Based on his experience in modular design and mass timber structures, CAZA’s Principal Carlos is currently teaching a 3-year advanced design & research studio at Pratt Institute’s Graduate School of Architecture and Urban Design addressing innovations in modular building systems through digital prototyping, robotic manufacturing, and biomaterials. The students’ work is being documented as a book to be published next year.
CAZA’s proposal for Victorias New Government Center (VNGC) in Philippines is a 6000 sqm building set within a five-phase masterplan design comprising retail, housing, innovation, and arts programming. Following a metabolic design process, the structure is arranged around four distinctive towers, two of which harvest rainwater and two that exchange and ventilate air. Erected upon a concrete frame with integrated flood retention cisterns, the five-storey building is covered with a solar paneled roof and wrapped in a facade made of green metal pipes that filter water into terraced planters.
CAZA’s FR House built in the Philippines’ scenic Punta Fuego peninsula was published in Monocle (Issue 168). This cast-in-place concrete house is perched on a bluff overlooking the South China Sea and takes the form of a cluster of volumes organized around a ground-floor garden. Each volume defines a different room in the house and has a single window that frames a particular view of the ocean, landscape, or sky.
