Design
Architecture, interiors, and design culture in Panama
The Casco Antiguo restoration grammar: how a 17th-century shell becomes a 2026 apartment
Panama City's UNESCO-listed historic district imposes a tight architectural vocabulary on every restoration. Here is what that vocabulary preserves, what it forbids, and why the discipline shapes every transaction inside the old quarter.
How a 17th-century building becomes a 2026 apartment: the restoration grammar of Casco Antiguo
In Casco Antiguo, a restored colonial facade often fronts a building barely a decade old. That is not a failure of preservation; it is a four-order code working exactly as written.
The restoration grammar of Casco Antiguo: how a colonial shell becomes a 2026 apartment
Behind Casco Antiguo's protected facades, a strict legal grammar dictates what can be kept, what must be rebuilt, and what a buyer of a restored colonial building is actually purchasing.
Casco Antiguo's restoration grammar: the rules that govern a 17th-century building's second life
Restoration in Panama City's UNESCO-listed historic district is not a renovation contract but a regulatory choreography. A field guide to the legal grammar that decides what a colonial shell in Casco Antiguo can — and cannot — become.