Located nine kilometers southeast of Guatemala City’s historic center, the new U.S. Embassy, Guatemala City, Guatemala, consists of an 18,800-square-meter new chancery building and support buildings with a below-grade garage. The design emphasizes the important diplomatic relationship between the United States and Guatemala and provides the first impression for all Guatemalans planning to visit the country.

The project is sited on a relatively small, steeply sloping lot, surrounded by a mountain valley and deep forested ravines. Using an innovative terracing method to stabilize the extreme topography and organize the site, the design team was able to integrate the campus program while providing generous outdoor gardens for both visitors and staff.

The office building emerges from the ground plane as two complementary bars—a stone base and a glass tower. The base reflects an earthbound quality through its materiality and relationship to the site while the tower is characterized by openness and transparency. The conceptual form is reflective of the two countries—the megastructural, stone base is inspired by Maya architecture and transforms into a light and airy tower to symbolize the optimistic, diplomatic relationship between Guatemala and the United States. Communal programs surround a courtyard at the intersection of the tower and base, which forms the heart of the building. A generous plaza and consular garden are shaded and protected by canopies, providing a hospitable waiting area for a large volume of consular visitors.

The new campus is located next to several significant green spaces including the Parque Ecologico Jacarandas de Cayala and Parque Ecologico y Deportivo Cayala. The design creates significant areas of forest and native vegetation that link to these spaces, providing water recharge, protection against natural disasters, and shelter for biodiversity.

Targeted to exceed the Federal Performance Goals for energy efficiency and renewable energy, the project reduces energy consumption by 26.5% over a comparable new building and provides 9% of the new office building’s energy consumption with solar photovoltaics. The new campus is designed to reduce offsite flows by treating and reusing wastewater onsite, all irrigation water is supplied by this reclaimed resource. Additionally, the new compound will match existing pre-development stormwater runoff flows using detention tanks which slow the release of water, mitigating risk to water quality and adjacent slope stability.