SURBA

Project Location: Colombia

Universidad Libre Campus

How can a university thoughtfully expand and integrate into the urban fabric?

Universidad Libre in Bogotá, Colombia—one of the country’s oldest private universities—tasked CAZA with tripling its architectural footprint and weaving its sprawling urban campus into the dense fabric of downtown.

CAZA’s master plan strategically incorporates pockets of green space throughout the campus by organizing the new buildings along an X-shaped axis of grass and trees. Along this axis, we sited a variety of new facilities, including laboratories and administrative buildings, while clustering key existing structures—such as the 14,250-square-meter sports stadium, laboratories, sports club, and classroom buildings—around them.

Axonometric view of the Universidad Libre Campus massing model highlighting the central landscape corridor.
Universidad Libre Campus

The plan not only consolidates the university’s disparate campuses into a coherent, visible presence, it also introduces hybrid buildings designed to host university-affiliated startups, strengthening ties between technology and academia.

By embracing energy-conscious planning, metabolic architecture, resiliency, and eco-industrialization, the campus becomes a forward-thinking model for institutional growth in harmony with its urban environment.

Masterplan drawing of the Universidad Libre Campus with labeled pathways, buildings, and green spaces.
Universidad Libre Campus

Servita Arts Complex

How can architecture bring together arts and municipal services?

Servita Arts Complex in Bogotá brings together an unlikely pairing of buildings: an art museum in a historic home and a series of municipal service facilities. The Complex centers around Villa Servita, a historic landmark that is free and open to the public, and houses an emerging art gallery. Due to the structure’s landmark restrictions, it was prohibited to build anything taller than the house on this plot of land. To accommodate these restrictions, we created an interconnected subterranean network of municipal buildings, designed with parametric design strategies, that wrap around the property in a snake-like configuration.

We consider each project on its own terms and develop tailored responses. Learn about our vision and mission.

A vision of the future rooted in heritage
The design of Servita Arts Complex embraces the architectural and artistic traditions of Colombia, creating a municipal center that embodies the aspirations of the community while remaining grounded in its heritage. The shifting geometric configuration of the complex was inspired by the folding planes of the Andes Mountains and references the Post-War and Contemporary Colombian art found in the Villa Servita. The project incorporates modular planning principles and reflects metabolic architecture by integrating energy flows and circulation patterns that connect both the arts and civic functions.

MUNAM

How can built space nurture a city's music industry?

MUNAM is a hub for Colombia’s burgeoning music industry, an incredibly significant and lucrative business in Bogotá.

Rendered evening view of MUNAM showing illuminated stage, curved green roof, and crowds gathering outdoors.
MUNAM

We consider each project on its own terms and develop tailored responses. Learn about our vision and mission.

This project was commissioned by the Chamber of Commerce of Bogotá, along with the University of Los Andes. CAZA worked alongside these two groups to design a multifaceted mixed-use building that would centralize all elements of the music industry along one of the most important avenues in Bogotá. The structure would house offices, recording studios, variously sized event spaces, and the largest outdoor amphitheater in the city, together with a new commercial center, a restored wetland park, and a structured parking facility.

Exterior fascade of MUNAM with glass facade and modular parametric design in urban landscape
MUNAM

Our approach is strategically driven and informed. Click here to learn about our process.

The architecture and landscape work together to cultivate interchange and connectivity between visitors. The space itself functions as an incubator for creativity by encouraging mixing and crossovers between musicians, users, and editors. The design incorporates energy-efficient systems, modular planning, and principles of metabolic architecture supported by parametric design to create a dynamic, adaptive space attuned to the evolving needs of Bogotá’s creative economy.

Diagram of MUNAM showing program components such as green roof, offices, museum, recording studios, and public plazas.
MUNAM
Diagram of MUNAM showing different usage patterns such as museum exhibitions, street fairs, concerts, and music festivals.
MUNAM

LA 100

Can a mixed-use complex be both contemporary and contextual?

La 100, CAZA’s inaugural project in Colombia, demonstrates how a contemporary urban development can remain deeply connected to its cultural and ecological context. Designed as a multi-modal mixed-use complex, La 100 combines modularplanning and metabolic architecture to create an adaptable, energy-efficient, and resilient hub for Bogotá’s fast-changing urban fabric.

We consider each project on its own terms and develop tailored responses. Learn about our vision and mission.

Situated at the crossroads of 100th Street and 7th Avenue—directly across from the city’s main financial center—La 100 integrates high-end offices, hotels, and residences in a dense, pedestrian-friendly environment. Its design is rooted in local tradition, with each tower clad in a unique, vibrantly pigmented façade, echoing Colombia’s history of richly colored brick construction.

The buildings are organized into a flexible, modular system that incorporates terraces on the mountainside façades, offering panoramic views of Bogotá’s surrounding landscape. Interwoven between the towers, a series of public parks and landscaped areas create distributive networks of green space, which not only encourage social interaction but also contribute to the site’s microclimatic resiliency.

Our approach is strategically driven and informed. Click here to learn about our process.

By combining innovative parametric design with eco-industrialization strategies—such as optimized energy flows and shared infrastructure—La 100 is more than a cluster of buildings: it is a sustainable, forward-looking model of urban density that remains rooted in place and culture.

Corferias

Can redesigning a building transform a city district?

Our master plan for the expansion of Bogota’s largest exhibition hall, Corferias, aims at increasing accessibility and transforming this crucial civic area into Bogota’s next lifestyle district.

Street-level view of Corferias convention hall with tall angled columns supporting a vast triangular roof and multiple terraces with greenery.
Corferias

We consider each project on its own terms and develop tailored responses. Learn about our vision and mission.

To improve the District’s connectivity, CAZA designed all the buildings as modular, connective structures, with bridges and walkways that link the center’s various buildings to one another as well as to surrounding public transportation hubs—applying principles of distributive networks and parametric design. The design also incorporates resiliency by weaving green infrastructure throughout the site.

Daytime perspective of Corferias convention hall showing open multi-level structure under a dramatic slanted roof with rooftop gardens.
Corferias

Our approach is strategically driven and informed. Click here to learn about our process.

The master plan includes a 200-room hotel so that convention center visitors and exhibitors have onsite lodging and a 15-story office building for the water company Acueducto that features hanging gardens overlooking Avenida de las Americas and Corferias—bringing aspects of metabolic architecture and eco-industrialization into the urban fabric.

Cartagena Airport

How can spaces of transience regain a connection to nature and to history?

Our design for the Cartagena Airport explores how an airport can tap into a city’s rich history and ecology.

Aerial view of Cartagena Airport with golden wave-like roof and multiple planes at the gates.
Cartagena Airport

We consider each project on its own terms and develop tailored responses. Learn about our vision and mission.

Cartagena de las Indias is a port city known for its lush landscapes, beaches, and well-preserved colonial architecture. Our airport is both environmentally and regionally sensitive to the city’s distinct character. The structure welcomes the surrounding landscape through a series of interior gardens featuring local vegetation. In turn, these gardens connect to a system of bio-swales which reduce the overall site temperature and mitigate flooding risk. Designed with principles of metabolic architecture and resiliency, the courtyards bring nature to all the main functions of the airport and act as anchors of commercial activity.

Cartagena Airport lobby with high arches, natural light, and interior greenery.
Cartagena Airport

Our approach is strategically driven and informed. Click here to learn about our process.

The form of the new airport pays homage to the city’s historic fortresses: the arches that line the airport echo the walled city’s classical arches and act as iconic gateways that frame the experience of arrival and departure, while the modular and parametric design ensures efficient, adaptable operations and reduced environmental impact through energy-conscious strategies.

Site plan of Cartagena Airport with central gardens and surrounding landscape.
Cartagena Airport
Programmatic analysis diagram of Cartagena Airport with color-coded levels.
Cartagena Airport
Section drawing of Cartagena Airport with central forest and cultural references.
Cartagena Airport

Bogota Centro

How might we stimulate growth in a shifting urban fabric?

Bogota Centro is the most significant urban intervention in Bogotá to date, rethinking how citizens relate to their city through an integrated framework of metabolic architecture and distributive networks. Located on a 72-hectare former brewery site, the master plan embraces Bogotá’s dynamic urban character by creating finely balanced zones of built and unbuilt space that enable growth, resilience, and regenerative development.

Night aerial view of Bogotá Centro masterplan with illuminated towers and green corridors.
Bogota Centro

We consider each project on its own terms and develop tailored responses. Learn about our vision and mission.

The design organizes the site into a constellation of micro-neighborhoods, each defined by mixed-use buildings and anchored by public open spaces—squares framed by office towers, parks coupled with schools, and community gardens interwoven into the landscape. These eco-industrialized neighborhoods are linked by a varied road network that adapts to function and scale, integrating the new plan with the surrounding street grid and adjacent older districts.

Closer aerial of Bogotá Centro with mid- and high-rise towers surrounding green spaces.
Bogota Centro

Our approach is strategically driven and informed. Click here to learn about our process.

This approach applies energy-conscious and resilient strategies to promote density while preserving quality of life, and foregrounds regenerative health by prioritizing social interaction and access to green space. By weaving together ecological, infrastructural, and social threads, Bogota Centro charts a sustainable, adaptable path for the city’s ongoing transformation.

Street-level view of Bogotá Centro with towers rising behind landscaped plazas.
Bogota Centro
Street perspective of Bogotá Centro with modern towers and green public realm.
Bogota Centro
Urban plan diagram of Bogotá Centro with green corridors and tower clusters.
Bogota Centro
Wide panoramic rendering of Bogotá Centro with towers and expansive open space.
Bogota Centro
Topographic diagram showing tower height distribution in Bogotá Centro.
Bogota Centro
Ecological and street-grid plan of Bogotá Centro with parks and circulation routes.
Bogota Centro

La Vega

How can new buildings elevate and integrate into their context?

The design for Hue Hotel rethinks what tropical architecture can be in the 21st century. Embracing the lush climate but drawing attention inward, the bulbous design arrays a stack of interlocking rings that produce a procession of social spaces across terraces, roof gardens, and hotel amenities. Guests move between the shared communal spaces in the central enclosure to a collection of bespoke private rooms along the upper reaches of the building.

We consider each project on its own terms and develop tailored responses. Learn about our vision and mission.

Communal Spaces
Social spaces and gathering areas are integrated into the interlocking ring structures, designed using parametricdesign principles to optimize form and function. The interiors create dramatic and unexpected effects with local materials, offering elevated environments that feel rooted in their place while supporting resiliency and efficient energy use. The modular structure allows flexibility over time, aligning with the goals of metabolic architecture and sustainable development in the region.