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Urum

What can a new community do for its ecosystem and its people?

This new community in the north of Peru is designed to conserve the landscape it is set in while promoting resiliency and sustainable growth. Rooted in a deep analysis of the area’s topology, vegetation, and hydrological flows, the project will develop less than 5% of the land, leaving the rest as a natural preserve.

Each of the structures is designed as a discreet insertion into the land that works with existing natural cycles, strengthening the ecosystem while offering residents a place that fosters regenerative health and keeps them in close contact with their surroundings. Through subtle distributive networks of resources and infrastructure, Urum balances human habitation with environmental stewardship.

Site plan of 21 villas within a forested peninsula, with shared garden, trails, and panoramic hotspot.
Urum
Cross-section diagrams showing elevation, dry-forest buffer zones, and villa placement across the site.
Urum

Post-Pandemic Retail Environments

What are some long-term solutions to accelerating retail trends?

Post-Pandemic Retail Environments presents CAZA’s architectural examination of how retail must adapt in an era defined by accelerated trends and shifting consumer behavior. The study begins by understanding crisis as a force that amplifies existing patterns, revealing the need for retail spaces to align more closely with data-driven insights and evolving cultural expectations.

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

Central to the research is the rethinking of retail’s three-part architectural framework—the User Interface, Physical Platform, and Logistic Infrastructure. CAZA explores how these components can be spatially reorganized to create more productive synergies across an expanded network of touch points. As fear disrupted the traditional shopping ritual, the study focuses on how design can reawaken desire through atmosphere, materiality, and spatial choreography.

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

The work argues that hybridized retail—where brick-and-mortar environments merge seamlessly with digital platforms—requires an architecture of continuous engagement. Physical space becomes part of a nonstop loop of in-person and online experiences, empowering consumers with a heightened sense of agency. This shift creates new opportunities for wellness-oriented environments, as health becomes an essential driver of retail relevance.
To guide long-term transformation, CAZA outlines strategies rooted in spatial analysis and computational planning. These include evaluating retail mixes, designing adaptable environments that respond to trend shifts, and integrating real-time analytics to optimize circulation, usage patterns, and spatial performance. By linking supply chain intelligence with architectural planning, retailers can operate with greater responsiveness and resilience.

The study concludes with key principles for future retail: integrating nature as a healing and branding device, designing spaces as experiential platforms for the hybrid consumer, forming deeper partnerships with tenants, and creating events that generate meaningful foot traffic. Together, these insights position retail environments not just to recover, but to evolve into more immersive, flexible, and culturally attuned architectural landscapes.

Perspectives On The Emerging Rural Metropolis

What can we learn from urban peripheries and rural hinterlands?

Perspectives On The Emerging Rural Metropolis explores CAZA’s vision for how rural and peripheral regions across the developing world can become powerful engines of innovation, growth, and cultural identity. The study begins with the belief that scarcity—when combined with expanding access to technology—drives reverse innovation: new logistical systems for business, enhanced educational platforms, and pathways toward greater social justice. By organizing the research around Trends, Strategies, and Models, CAZA reveals how dispersed populations and shifting economic forces are reshaping the rural landscape.

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

At the trend level, the study identifies a major demographic shift: populations moving toward urban peripheries and rural hinterlands in the post-pandemic age. This transition is supported by the global push for reshoring, which positions rural areas as sites of synergy between agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce. CAZA also examines how the convergence of housing and technology will redefine the work–live balance, and how the rising demand for locally grown food will require stronger supply chains powered by real-time data. Together, these forces catalyze the emergence of the “rural metropolis”—a new kind of region where productivity and ecology can advance in tandem.

To prepare for this future, CAZA outlines a set of strategies for regional transformation: leveraging geographic networks, asserting local character, diversifying economies, and strengthening agri-industry. These strategies emphasize the importance of using regional assets—topography, natural systems, heritage, and community networks—as the core foundation for growth. Rather than imposing urban models onto rural terrain, the study advocates designing from the landscape outward, aligning economic development with environmental resilience.

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

From these strategies emerge architectural and planning models that demonstrate the tangible opportunities within the emerging rural metropolis. CAZA introduces four prototypes—Agri Town, Eco-Industrial Community, Wellness Community, and Nature Refuge Retreat—each designed to amplify a region’s natural and economic strengths. These models propose agro-tourism circuits, topographically intelligent town plans, ecological industrial zones, low-impact housing environments, and cultural retreats that strengthen the bond between nature and human activity. Each model is conceived as a scalable framework capable of guiding long-term regional growth.

The study concludes with a five-step approach to regional planning: improve productivity, expand the economy, preserve nature, integrate infrastructure, and network communities. Through these steps, CAZA envisions rural regions transforming into interconnected metropolitan systems—productive yet ecological, technologically enabled yet culturally grounded. Perspectives On The Emerging Rural Metropolis ultimately presents a blueprint for how the next wave of development can emerge not from cities alone, but from the revitalized potentials of the rural landscape.

Lurin Eco-Industrial Park

How can an eco-industrial park forge a community?

Eco-industrial parks (EIPs) are an economic development model based on cooperation to increase productivity, improve resource management, and enhance environmental sustainability. While there are over 300 EIPs in operation worldwide, none exist yet in Peru.

Close aerial of Lurín Eco-Industrial Park with terraced buildings, solar-ready roofs, tree-lined streets, and desert hills
Lurin Eco-Industrial Park
Site strategy layers—elements, green system, and regional context—guiding the Lurín Eco-Industrial Park master plan.
Lurin Eco-Industrial Park

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

Site layers
The Lurin EIP masterplan superimposes a layer that encourages community building and innovation, generating a green network across the entire area. Designed with parametric design tools to adapt to the site’s unique topography and climate, the plan optimizes spatial efficiency and ecological performance.

Our design for the Lurin Eco-Industrial Park integrates nearly 400 hectares of industrial areas with a green network of roads and parks that function as a waste-to-energy system to reduce pollution and recycle surplus manufacturing waste. The masterplan develops a series of modular concentric rings that integrate with the existing topography. Each ring connects to an interlocking chain of bio-based facilities and industrial zones that manage energy, water, waste, and services—demonstrating principles of metabolic architecture.

Industrial symbiosis diagram mapping resource sharing, reuse, reforestation, and common services across the park.
Lurin Eco-Industrial Park

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

Symbiotic community
Industrial, commercial, and community areas are considered as a whole, ensuring a balance that enhances environmental, economic, and social performance while promoting resiliency through shared infrastructure and distributed systems.

Ultimately, the aim is to let clients be more than just tenants and instead become members of a community that helps Peru grow responsibly and inclusively, improving regenerative health for people and ecosystems alike.

Planned for sustainability
Lurin Eco-Industrial Park allows businesses to cooperate to reduce waste and pollution, efficiently share resources, help achieve sustainable development, increase economic gains, and improve environmental quality through an integrated, eco-industrialization framework.

Close aerial of Lurín Eco-Industrial Park with terraced buildings, solar-ready roofs, tree-lined streets, and desert hills
Lurin Eco-Industrial Park
Eco-park zone with biomorphic research domes, reforestation belts, and public trails at Lurín Eco-Industrial Park.
Lurin Eco-Industrial Park

Long Island City Oyster

How can a new development reconnect a neighborhood to its waterfront?

After a boom in high-rise residential development, Long Island City—now more densely built and populated—lacked the balanced mix of uses and infrastructure that makes for a thriving community. As manufacturing retreated, the waterfront—once the focal point of the community—became desolate and abandoned.

To address these issues, CAZA developed Long Island City Oyster, a masterplan and new development model for New York City that reconnects the neighborhood to a revitalized waterfront. The plan creates a network of public spaces that knit together new buildings and link them to the water, laying the groundwork for a vibrant, resilient district. These public spaces work in synergy with a programming mix that positions the waterfront as a center of activity and strengthens its ecosystems through principles of metabolic architecture.

LIC Oyster waterfront boardwalk and public pool on the East River with Queensboro Bridge and terracotta buildings.
Long Island City Oyster

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

Reconnecting Long Island City to its waterfront
The project’s built footprint accounts for only 55% of the total site area, leaving the rest of the space for a 2.5-acre park that unifies the buildings and reconnects Long Island City to its waterfront. Designed with parametric tools to optimize sightlines, circulation, and sunlight access, the park hosts year-round outdoor and indoor amenities, including a 7,000-square-foot black box performance space, a waterfront ice skating rink that converts into a pool for the summer months, a riverside bosque, a restored oyster-bed wetland, an eco-themed children’s playground, an open plaza for farmer’s markets, a sandy beach, and a ferry landin

Ecologically Sensitive Design
The plan incorporates rainwater recycling measures and adds water-efficient landscaping that filters storm-water while counteracting urban heat island effect. The building’s modular massing and siting optimize passive temperature control and natural ventilation, reducing overall energy consumption and enabling eco-industrialization strategies that balance human activity with ecological stewardship.

Street-level plaza at LIC Oyster with arched retail base, terracotta shingles, trees, and outdoor seating.
Long Island City Oyster

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

Public Gateways
The base of the buildings are shaped into sweeping public gateways that reinterpret the local industrial aesthetic of arches and recall the outlines of an oyster shell. Lined with community programs—including shops, social services, multi-purpose event space, and a supermarket—these gateways interface with the surrounding park to create an inviting district for residents of Long Island City and visitors alike.

Water strategy diagram for LIC Oyster showing rain harvesting, cisterns, water pathways, riverbank ecology, and green roofs.
Long Island City Oyster
Seasonal performance diagram of LIC Oyster with winter heat-loss control and summer natural ventilation.
Long Island City Oyster
Site plan of LIC Oyster mapping plaza, farmers market, ferry and kayak piers, river pool/ice rink, and landscape.
Long Island City Oyster

Lio Masterplan

Does deconstructing traditional folk architecture create opportunities for a new architectural identity?

Lio Beach is situated between El Nido Bay and tropical forests on the island of Palawan. The masterplan deconstructs traditional Filipino architectural elements, stitching the built environment into a woven landscape to create a unique resort destination. Designed as a sustainable and car-free neighborhood, the site employs a holistic approach to development.

Evening beachfront scene at Lio Masterplan with people gathering under palm trees and wooden pavilions.
Lio Masterplan

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

The resort focuses on public plazas that are inland extensions of the beach, each offering a different town experience. The smallest, on the western edge, is quieter. A central plaza holds family-focused offerings in terms of lodging and shopping. Finally, the largest one is lively and contains millennial-type spaces. This mixture of areas lets individuals curate their own experiences. Variety, scale, and form allow the masterplan to extend organically and bring in other developers. To this effect, CAZA created a 350-page zoning guidebook to encourage growth.

The masterplan responds to the wind and solar patterns, minimizing energy use and maximizing comfort. By looking at traditional folk architecture in the Philippines, the resort defines a new architectural vernacular and creates a sense of identity for the local community through modular, parametric design, and regenerative strategies that enhance resiliency and support distributive networks of development.

Daytime beachfront scene at Lio Masterplan with people swimming, sunbathing, and walking near wooden villas.
Lio Masterplan

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

Inspired by local context
Lio Beach Masterplan will be recognized worldwide as a distinctly Filipino tourist destination and sets a precedent for a contemporary architecture tradition along the island’s coastline.

Diagram showing roof form evolution of Lio Masterplan from Ifugao and salakot hat inspiration to clustered layouts.
Lio Masterplan

High Street South

Can discrete buildings collectively elevate the urban skyline?

CAZA’s design for High Street South redefines the cultural core of Manila’s Bonifacio Global City by merging energy-efficient, modular architecture with a richly layered urban fabric. The master plan orchestrates neighborhood, district, and city scales through a central spine that links a series of stratified public spaces—echoing the principles of metabolic architecture where systems of circulation, culture, and ecology are interwoven into a dynamic whole.

Aerial rendering of a dense cluster of glass towers with green terraces, integrated parks, and surrounding city fabric.
High Street South

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

The development introduces a collection of hybridized mixed-use towers. Each building integrates a gradient of uses: eco-industrialized mobility and retail zones activate the public ground level; semi-private recreation and amenity spaces occupy intermediate floors; and private residential areas—comprising urban villas, terraced apartments, and lofts—crown the towers. This parametric design strategy responds fluidly to programmatic demands while enhancing resilience and flexibility for future adaptation.

Ground-level view of towers from the street, with trees, people walking, and kites in the sky.
High Street South

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

The facades employ playful, idiosyncratic grids that reflect the buildings’ internal stratification, creating a coherent visual language and a lively texture across the skyline. With its focus on sustainability, public life, and architectural identity, High Street South exemplifies how a network of resilient, modular buildings can collectively elevate not just the skyline, but the lived experience of an urban center.

Tower diagrams showing a structural grid and embedded typologies within a high-rise form.
High Street South
Six conceptual massing models of hybrid towers with varied base and tower configurations.
High Street South
Diagram of two tower types showing stacked apartment, villa, and loft typologies.
High Street South
Landscape plan with diagrams of bioswales, trees, and palm trees distributed across blocks.
High Street South
Sectional diagram showing layers of public, semi-private, and private spaces across towers and ground plane.
High Street South

Hamilo Village

How can we create a flexible holiday community?

CAZA’s masterplan for Hamilo Village, located along the Hamilo Coast in the Philippines, draws from the site’s diverse topography to create a resilient and regenerative coastal community. Designed with principles of metabolic architecture, the plan organizes architectural responses to each topographical variation, embedding flows of energy, water, and ecology into the fabric of the village.

Aerial view of CAZA’s Hamilo Village at Hamilo Coast, Philippines; blue overlay highlights the shoreline development zone.
Hamilo Village

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

The project’s primary goals are to weave the village into its surrounding landscape, respond to the needs of varied living situations, take inspiration from traditional materials and textures, and include diverse residential units to serve a broad population. Through a strategy of distributive networks, the masterplan ensures that infrastructure, open space, and social amenities are distributed equitably across the site, fostering social cohesion and ecological balance.

To arrive at the design of the villas, the team analyzed each lot’s depth and slope, which became key factors influencing the housing prototypes. This analysis led to three broad categories of villas—situated on flat land, valley, and peak—each designed to adapt to its specific environmental conditions while enhancing the village’s overall resiliency.

Axonometric rendering of CAZA’s Hamilo Village villa prototypes at Hamilo Coast, Philippines—three houses stepping down a sloped site, with timber/concrete volumes and metal roofs.
Hamilo Village

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

In addition to providing adaptable and inclusive housing, the masterplan incorporates strategies for regenerative health, prioritizing clean water, natural ventilation, and green spaces that promote community well-being over time. By integrating housing, landscape, and ecology into a cohesive system, Hamilo Village exemplifies a forward-thinking model of eco-industrialization, where residential and natural systems coexist and support one another sustainably.

Three CAZA Hamilo Village lot layout options showing building, garden, and pool placements; parcel outlines below with red dashed setback/terracing bands.
Hamilo Village
Three CAZA Hamilo Village villa layout options—rectangular, tapered, and irregular lots—with red dashed cross-axes showing siting and view/ventilation guidelines.
Hamilo Village
Three CAZA Hamilo Village villa layout variations at Hamilo Coast, Philippines—irregular parcel plans with shaded setback zones and red dashed siting axes showing room, garden, and pool placements.
Hamilo Village

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

Victorias Eco-Hub

Could a manufacturing park work as hard for the ecosystem and the public realm as the economy?

Victorias Eco-Hub—based on a 2018 United Nations study of greener industrialization models—is a 450-hectare district that embodies the principles of eco-industrialization, blending industrial, manufacturing, and agricultural facilities with public space and ecological stewardship. Designed with an ethos of resiliency, the Eco-Hub creates systems where programs reuse one another’s waste products, maximizing economic growth while minimizing environmental impact. Household water waste, for example, is treated and redirected to farming, sugar-cane refining, and electronics manufacturing. Excess ethanol from sugar-cane processing is converted into green energy, which powers fisheries, greenhouse farms, and cement plants. This regenerative feedback system reflects the principles of metabolic architecture, where flows of material, water, and energy circulate through the district. A digital twin measures key metrics in real-time, giving owners full control over plant operations while ensuring resiliency and adaptability to future conditions.

Virtuous Cycle
Our design weaves a fine-grain circulation network through a continuous ecological corridor of existing watersheds, riparian ecosystems, and new flood-retention basins. This creates a physical feedback loop—waste fuels manufacturing, and low-carbon technologies generate energy that feeds back into the system—exemplifying a holistic approach to metabolic architecture.

Holistic Planning
More than just an industrial zone, the Eco-Hub is conceived as a resilient city. It integrates a strong public realm and community resources—including university facilities, housing, and open markets—alongside its manufacturing base. The urban block structure promotes variety and density, lowering the carbon footprint, while the adaptable massing design allows buildings to hybridize or convert over time, sustaining resiliency and supporting long-term eco-industrialization.

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

Connecting the regiong
Located on Negros—the Philippine island with the highest concentration of agriculture- and technology-focused universities—the Eco-Hub taps into the local knowledge economy. Strategically sited between the island’s airport, beaches, and downtown, it strengthens connections between these destinations and creates porous movement frameworks that foster a livable, resilient city aligned with eco-industrialization principles.

Haishu Waterfront

How can data help cities design for 21st-century challenges?

Contemporary Chinese cities are facing new challenges. As the country’s urban centers expand and districts continue to rise on previously vacant land, traditional development strategies are proving outdated. Buildings designed to address immediate needs do not necessarily create neighborhoods that support long-term growth, and the fast-expanding cities threaten to sprawl if new districts do not integrate with the surrounding landscapes and urban fabric.

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

A bold heading for something important about this project
To overcome these challenges, CAZA designed Haishu Waterfront district using a forward-looking data-driven, parametric design approach. Located on an island in Ningbo, one of China’s largest port cities, the district is based on a fine-grain modular grid that enhances the city’s existing road network and orients the new district towards its waterfronts.

Site Strategy
With the conclusions from data analyses, CAZA developed a modular urban grid that enhances regional connectivity and provides the conditions for a livable mixed-use community. A network of open green space extends from a riverfront park to the east to the canal on Haishu’s western edge. Three primary roads—a commercial avenue, green avenue, and waterfront avenue—define centers of public life. These are intersected by large roadways that connect Haishu to the surrounding city. Secondary roads and alleys throughout bolster connectivity within the district and give rise to a fine-grain street pattern that ensures lively and walkable streets.

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

Data-driven development
The design of Haishu’s urban grid is based on comprehensive analyses of regional conditions. Road and subway accessibility studies informed the layout and distribution of streets, allowing them to improve connectivity throughout the city and alleviate congestion on overworked roadways. By analyzing local real estate transactions, CAZA developed zoning and density strategies that respond to demand for residential and commercial space—ensuring the new development works with the surroundings to create a functional urban ecosystem built on principles of distributive networks and resiliency.

Community Life
The masterplan creates a rich sense of local identity and community life centered on Haishu’s unique waterfront setting. Destinations like an Ecology Educational Center, Sports Club, and Ecological Park activate the waterfront and draw visitors from throughout the city. These are complemented by public amenities further inland, including a canal-side shopping mall and hotel and convention center—offering a model for urbanism aligned with regenerative health and eco-industrialization.