ARCHITECTURE, April 1999
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| Canopy Tower, 900 feet above sea level in Soberania National Park Panama provides guests with rare opportunity to observe and study as many as 380 species of birds. Container ships and cruise liners in distance pass through Panama Canal locks. |
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First, do no harm. This was Raul Arias de Para's credo when he began transforming an abandoned radar tower in a lush jungle in Panama into a comfortable ecolodge for ornithologists and naturalists. Owner of Divertimento Ecologico, a successful Panamanian tourism company, Arias de Para is also a dedicated conservationist and an avid promoter of what is often called ecotourism: economic and land development for the tourist industry that is compatible with conservation. The Canopy Tower, as it's now called, is 50 feet tall and situated on a promontory 900 feet above sea level in the semideciduous rain forest of Soberania National Park, 30 minutes from Panama City. From the roof terrace that circles the 30-foot-diameter, geotangent dome, visitors have contrasting views. In the distance, container ships and ocean liners rise and fall as they pass through the canal locks. But within a few yards and at eye level, toucans, harpy eagles, macaws, parrots, raptors, and hundreds of migratory birds nest at every level in the thick foliage.
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Rusty steel structure (above) contained powerful radar for U.S. military. During renovation, contractor carefully removed lead-based paint and installed windows. Near completion, contractor painted tower bright yellow and aquamarine (below), recalling colors of toucan. |
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As tropical paradises go, Panama has never had the exotic image enjoyed by its neighbor, Costa Rica, or any other Central American tourist destination. Since 1914, when a 50-mile ditch sliced the isthmus and Continental Divide and connected the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, Panama has instead been synonymous with shipping and trade. On December 31, 1999, in compliance with the 1977 Carter-Torrijos Treaties, the United States will turn over sovereignty of the Canal Zone to the Panamanian people. The government, in concert with private investors, sees this as an opportunity to build a tourist economy, promote the country's cultural heritage on a global scale, and sponsor environmentally sustainable development. Arias de Para is one of those private investors.
In August 1995, he began searching for a site on which to develop his first ecotourist project. On a tip from an American employee of the Panama Canal Commission (PCC), he discovered an abandoned radar tower in Soberania National Park. The U.S. Air Force built the tower in 1965 to house a powerful radar used in the defense of the Panama Canal. By 1969, the site was jointly used by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to control air traffic, and by the PCC as a communications tower. The FAA permit terminated in June 1979, but the PCC continued to use a small area of the tower. In June 1995, after a brief revival to help the army detect drug-smuggling airplanes from South America, the installation was permanently closed.
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On his first visit, Arias de Para became convinced that the radar station, a rusty corrugated steel shell with no windows, could be converted to a comfortable lodge. He then began a journey through Panama's bureaucratic approval process. First he gained support from the Interoceanic Regional Authority (ARI), the agency created by the Panamanian government in 1993 to oversee and promote investment in the 86-acre Canal Zone. Then he maneuvered through the park service, tourist bureau, PCC, U.S. Army Southern Command, and U.S. Air Force. "I convinced everyone that I did not have to cut a single |
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tree or use a bulldozer. I simply proposed to remodel a military building for visitors interested in observing the rain forest and its inhabitants," Arias de Para explains. He is not without influence in high places or powers of persuasion, and in September 1997, he signed a concession contract to convert the installation to an ecolodge.
With local architect Omar Cedeño, Arias de Para created a functional scheme to adapt the tower's interior by retaining the four existing levels and introducing windows for viewing at several elevations within the jungle canopy: ground level for future exhibitions, a mezzanine level for viewing, guest rooms with large windows and private baths at the third level, communal and dining facilities on the top level, and an observation deck on the roof. The plan was simple enough, but Arias de Para couldn't find a local contractor willing to undertake the renovation. Citing the tower's remote location and modest scope (6,000 square feet), those he approached warned him that their bids would be exorbitant. Undaunted, he appointed himself general contractor and hired a crew.
Dependable access to the tower was the first order of business. Arias de Para spent his first month patching a narrow road leading to the tower and reinforcing a termite-damaged bridge with steel salvaged from the radar site. Before work could begin on the tower's interior, Arias de Para had to replace the narrow stair that rose without landings at a dangerous 60-degree angle through the structure. He built a steel, 6 1/2-foot-wide stair with a comfortable 30-degree rise. When the rainy season began, workers climbed an improvised, curving ladder and sealed leaks in the fiberglass dome with silicone.
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Six two-person bedrooms on the thrid floor have teak doors and trim harvested from Arias de Para's commercial plantation. |
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Most work occurred on the guest room floor. In its military incarnation, technicians monitored the radar in two large spaces with a toilet. "The U.S. Air Force didn't want its employees admiring the rain forest instead of watching for incoming missiles, so they built it with no windows," Arias de Para speculates. He hired a welder to cut openings in the steel and a window-maker to install sliding aluminum windows.
Fortunately, what the air force lacked in amenities, it made up for in sturdy, low-maintenance construction. The galvanized steel structure and the foundation were in excellent condition and required little repair. An underground grid, built by the air force, distributes electricity to the tower. The transformer nearby has the capacity to power a 60-unit apartment building, 10 times more power than the Canopy Tower needs.
In contrast, water, though adequate, is not abundant. The air force used only stored rain water to supply the toilet and shipped drinking water in daily. Luckily, Arias de Para ran into Dick Warren, a retired civilian employee of the U.S. Department of Defense, who recalled that he had helped drill a well on the site 25 years before. With his help, Arias de Para located the artesian well 200 feet below ground. The well provides only two gallons of water per minute, but that meets the tower's conservation-motivated demand. He installed low-flow toilets that use only 1.5 gallons per flush. Water is warmed for each shower using manually-controlled electric heaters. Toilet waste goes to a typical septic tank, and solids are removed periodically by a pumping truck. Soon, however, Arias de Para will begin treating soapy kitchen water in a holding tank and using it to supply water to the toilets instead of draining the kitchen water directly into the septic tank.
Once gutted, interior wall construction was routine. Gypsum wallboard was used everywhere except the bathrooms, which were built with a Costa Rican version of plycem—a noncombustible, structural, moistureproof cement board—rather than the asbestos cement board common to this area. As the spaces took form, Arias de Para began to consider finishes. Interior designer Ruth Mellergaard, president of New York City-based Grid 3 International, arrived to advise him on a color scheme and furnishings. Inspired by her first sighting of a Keel-billed toucan, Mellergaard developed a color scheme based on the seven colors of the toucan's beak. The result is gleaming yellow beacon atop an aquamarine-colored cylinder. The hollow dome sits on a base on the roof structure, which is supported by steel beams that radiate from the building's center. The beams are exposed in the ceiling of the communal floor below. Arias de Para removed drywall that hid the dome's unpainted interior shell. The result is a intriguing dark void that is the inverse of the exterior's beckoning orb.
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The Canopy Tower, Soberania National Park, Panama
Client:
Raul Arias de Para, Divertimento Ecologico
Architect:
Omar Cedeño
Consultants:
Ricardo Bermúdez; Alvaro Gonzáles; Gaspar Silvera (design); Grid 3 International (interiors); Luis Corella (construction manager)
Cost: $700,000 |
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In December, the Canopy Tower opened to guests, many of whom are researchers. The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and Clemson University will conduct a long-term study of bird migrations with volunteers from the University of Panama and the Panama Audubon Society. However, this project has significance beyond its immediate function. With the reflagging of the canal next December, Panama will inherit from the United States assets worth billions of dollars in infrastructure and architecture - schools, single-family houses, barracks, clubs, clinics, storage buildings, recreational facilities, churches, theaters, and office complexes - and the opportunity to become a world leader in adaptive reuse and conservation. Although unpretentious and self-consciously deferential to its surroundings, the Canopy Tower must be considered a role model for a country with few good precedents and a lot to lose. |
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Architects to Play a Major Role in Panama's Future
In an admirable show of public-private cooperation and farsightedness, the Panamanian government has enlisted architects to help it plan environmentally responsible development after the reflagging of the Panama Canal on December 31, 1999. Last December, architects, environmentalists, scientists, journalists, and investors from around the world convened at a conference in Panama City to debate the ramifications of the recently developed Action Plan for the Development of the Tourism-Conservation- Research (TCR) Strategic Alliance. Conference organizer Hana Ayala, president of Irvine, California-based EcoResorts International, invited architect Frank O. Gehry to give the keynote address and set the tone for workshops that explored ways Panama might reuse its existing infrastructure while planning for controlled, environmentally responsible development. Gehry was candid in his criticism of Panama City's banal skyline. By the end of the conference, however, optimism was high and Gehry announced the formation of a Panamanian-American task force called Architects Strategic Alliance for Panama (ASAP), whose first assignment is to create a master plan for Fort Sherman, a former U.S. Army training facility.
Architect Patrick Dillon, a Panamanian member of ASAP, is coordinating the preparatory work for this TCR/ASAP flagship project. "The plan will involve converting many of the 150 military buildings on the 25,000-acre site to tourist use. "The army took good care of its installations, so the infrastructure is in excellent shape," explains Dillon. "We've never done this before here, so we have to build a consensus between the local government and private investors." The master plan will also include a site for Gehry's first Panamanian commission: an interpretive information center to showcase the country's outstanding ecosystem and cultural heritage.
reprinted by permission
copyright © 1999 ARCHITECTURE MAGAZINE |
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