Ocean Center
How can we build climate resiliency into tropical architecture?
Baler, Philippines
Design Development
![featured-image](https://caza.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Ocean-Center_Banner.jpg)
What should coastal architecture be in the age of climate change? The Ocean Center project anticipates dramatic sea-level rises and—rather than merely protecting against them—incorporates them as central design elements. The site and structures of the mixed-use community hub are designed to regulate the flow of floodwaters in a controlled and calculable way.
![](https://caza.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/10_Environmental-Strategy-1024x1024.jpeg)
Markets, shops, an oceanographic museum, apartments, a convention center and playfields are arrayed on a series of steps that rise away from Baler Bay, with open-air elements like the market occupying lower elevations and the museum, convention center, and apartments safely perched on higher bluffs.
![](https://caza.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/15-1024x576.jpg)
GEOGRAPHY AS DESIGN PRINCIPLE
The design of Ocean Center emerges from the surrounding geography. Conceived as an archipelago, the center arrays several centers of activity each with multiple orientations and a dense network of interconnections to the surrounding areas, lending the complex the feeling of a micro-village. Boundaries between each of these program areas are blurred, resulting in a web of program areas that are each complete onto themselves and interwoven with surroundings.
![](https://caza.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/11_Parallel-Orthography-1024x1024.jpeg)
RESILIENT LIVING
A group of apartment blocks are set on the hills of a botanical garden, elevated above the floodplain. The two-story apartments are arrayed end-to-end on a rising linear plan and interlocked with one another, offering each an ocean vista. Each has a skylight and floor-to-ceiling glazing, maximizing natural light and views while maintaining privacy.
![](https://caza.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/17-1024x576.jpeg)
![](https://caza.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Screen-Shot-2021-04-25-at-6.27.05-PM-772x1024.png)
- SIZE: 246,085 SQF
- PROJECT TEAM: Carlos Arnaiz, Jun Deng, Alden Ching, Patricia Tan, Sehyun Lee