Panama Rainforest Discovery Center

This article was originally published in Domus Central America/Caribbean edition No. 03, August/September 2011

The architecture that Panama is best known for is fundamentally commercial, and its admirers compare it in style to that of Singapore and Dubai. Although the country itself has a wealth of rich forests and is attracting increasing numbers of ecotourists, the glass skyscrapers and huge shopping malls of the capital have little in common with the international discourse on the environment and nature.

The Panama Rainforest Discovery Center is a notable exception. This centre designed to observe the tropical rainforest and its colourful wildlife—especially birds—is located around 30 kilometres from the centre of Panama City and just two kilometres from the town of Gamboa.

The project was the dream of the Eugene Eisenmann Avifauna Foundation, which was set up in 2005 to protect the fragile habitat of the country's birds, encourage sustainable tourism and promote environmental education. Its dream became a reality after it won the concession for 20 hectares of forest adjoining the enormous Soberanía National Park, which covers a large section of the eastern banks of the Panama Canal. The original concession has since been joined by a further 100 hectares belonging to the University of Panama and the Technological University of Panama.

The centre, which was designed in 2005 and built between 2006 and 2008, is the work of architect Patrick Dillon, who was born in Panama and spent his childhood in Gamboa at a time when the Canal Zone was still in existence. Dillon, who has worked on three continents, is one of the few architects in the country to have carved out an international career for himself. He studied architecture in the United States, first at Arizona State University in Tempe and later at Rice University in Houston. As with other members of his generation, the crisis in modernism led him to seek new avenues, and he worked from 1978 to 1986 with Ricardo Bofill in Barcelona and Paris. Later, he had his own studio in the French capital, before moving to South Africa. He finally decided to return to Panama in 1995, and set up his own design studio, Ensitu, four years later. Anyone familiar with his current work, which is green, diaphanous, light and totally free of any monumental tendencies, will note the enormous contrast with the postmodern-historicist grandiosity of Bofill's projects, which Dillon has totally distanced himself from.

In order to reach the Discovery Center, one must first get to Gamboa, which means escaping the hubbub (and traffic jams) of the Panamanian capital, driving along a long forest road that seems like it belongs in another country, and cross the Chagres river. Once in Gamboa, the route lies through the town and along a remote trail known as the Camino del Oleoducto ('oil pipeline track').

Gamboa and its surroundings are unique in Panama. This is largely due to the area's isolation, which has stopped it from being developed in the typical style of Latin American towns. Created in the 1930s as a dredging centre for the canal, it is situated halfway along the inter-oceanic route, and is very close to the famous Corte de Culebra pass. When the Canal Zone came to an end in 1979, it became a community in its own right, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute has a significant presence there. Many of its inhabitants are scientists from this institution, who work at Barro Colorado, a well-known wildlife reserve that has been called the "most studied piece of tropical forest in the world".

The Panama Rainforest Discovery Center is made up of two structures: a visitor centre and an observation tower. Both of these are inside the forest, 50 metres from each other, and provide information on the forest ecosystem and facilities for observing birds and other wildlife.

The visitor centre itself is a meeting point where visitors can hire a guide or plan their own route. Architecturally, it is shaped like a kind of awning, with steeply sloping roofs granting views out over the forest. It has a large terrace offering a map of the site and images of local wildlife. To one side, set out in a string arrangement, are the bathrooms, a water tank and a small house for the guard. The building is self-sufficient, meeting all its needs with power from a solar plant and rainwater.

Some 75% of the structure was built using materials recycled from buildings demolished in the old Canal Zone. The steel structure comes from a demolished building that formerly stood near the Pedro Miguel locks, while the wood was reused from houses pulled down in the town of Gatún.

The tower, built in a tapering framework of steel tubes, is 32 metres tall, high enough to reach the forest canopy. The site was chosen for its accessibility—it had to be as close as possible to the visitor centre, and yet not require a single tree to be cut down. Some 30% of the material used in it is recycled, having come mostly from an old refinery.

The centre of the tower is made up of a spiral stairway built around a central 12-inch wide tube, which is so solid that it was used as a crane during the construction process. It has four triangular or hexagonal platforms, the highest of which provides a view out over the whole of the forest canopy. The intermediate platforms provide views of the undergrowth and mid-levels of the forest, each of which has its own environment and fauna. The framework itself, made from eight-inch-wide tubes, is made up of triangle shapes reminiscent of the petals of an enormous flower.

Since it was opened, the centre has welcomed more than 10,000 visitors, including students and tourists.
Eduardo Tejeira Davis

Photos Eugene Eisenmann Avifauna Foundation, Silvia Grünhut.