OCHAP

Office for Cohabitation Processes

MAC PANAMÁ

PROGRAM: Museum of contemporary art
PROJECT: OCHAP (Valerio Franzone), 2A+P/A (Gianfranco Bombaci, Matteo Costanzo), LGSMA (Luca Galofaro, Stefania Manna)
CLIENT: MAC Panamá
LOCATION: Panama City, Panama
AREA: 12.197 m²
STATUS: International design competition entry, 2026

The Museum of Contemporary Art of Panamá is a permeable organism, a radical open space in dialogue with the surrounding urban environment. It's a processual relationship established via spatial, technological, and natural strategies.

The museum, through its envelope, now establishes a social, cultural, and energetic bond with the city: to the north, a transparent façade reveals a fluid interior, while to the south, large tilted photovoltaic glass surfaces generate electricity by day and become a video display for art by night. On the ground floor, internal retail spaces and external green areas intensify the relationship with the city. The ground level is now a civic platform, transforming the museum into an urban catalyst.
The building's core lies in its continuous, adaptable exhibition areas, shaped by a wall system that rejects rigid layouts. The structural grid emerges from the ceilings and supports movable partitions and lighting, allowing spaces to adapt to curatorial configurations and to become a stage machine.

The building structure combines steel, bricks, and concrete. Steel defines a transparent perimeter, enabling large spans. Load-bearing brick walls shape the structural core, supporting vertical loads and providing thermal inertia. Concrete slabs with a steel frame increase structural span and integrate exhibition systems.
The double-skin north façade is a biofiltering greenhouse improving the internal air quality and thermal and acoustic performance. The north façade uses selective glazing to maximize light and transparency. The south façade incorporates photovoltaic panels. The east and west façades are defined by steel-clad panels to control light. The green roof collects and reuses rainwater for irrigating internal vegetation, while mitigating the building's internal temperature and the urban heat island effect. These strategies make the building a high-performance environmental system with advanced sustainability standards.