How this portfolio is organised
The published work divides into five categories, and the division is by the kind of job rather than by architectural style. Homes are single-family houses on individual lots. Condominiums are properties registered under Ley 7933, whether they take the form of an apartment building or a set of lots. Master plans and urban design cover whole properties — roads, services, lot layout and phasing — before any building is designed. Hotels and lodges are hospitality projects with an operator behind them. Commercial covers buildings that trade rather than buildings that are lived in.
Nearly all of it sits in Guanacaste, on and behind Costa Rica's Pacific coast: Nosara and Playa Guiones, Playa Pelada, Playas del Coco and Ocotal, Playa Brasilito, Playa Matapalo, Cabo Velas, the Papagayo peninsula, and Santa Teresa across the gulf.
Two kinds of engagement
The categories also split by the role Papagayo Design Center played. On homes, condominiums and commercial buildings the engagement is the full project-management lifecycle: design management, building permit management, pre-construction management, and construction management through project closeout. Design, engineering and construction are carried out by the project's architects, engineers and an independent general contractor — Papagayo Design Center provides project management, not design or construction.
On master plans and several of the larger developments the delivered scope is different: site analysis and land use, master plan and urban design, infrastructure construction documents, and permitting through the CFIA and SETENA. Some of the hospitality work combines the two. Each project page records which services were delivered and who led them.
What the categories have in common
Every project passes the same two gates. The drawing set is registered with the CFIA before a municipality issues a construction permit, and environmental review runs through SETENA. Beyond that, the constraints follow the ground. Hillside sites make drainage and grading a layout question rather than a detail. Coastal sites fall under the maritime zone law within 200 metres of the high-tide line, and the Papagayo peninsula runs on its own ICT concession framework. Costa Rica's seismic code governs the structure everywhere, and Ley 7600 sets accessibility requirements on anything open to the public.
What a client should expect
Timelines in this portfolio are measured in years. A single house commonly spans three to five calendar years from first drawing to handover, and a master-planned community is released in phases over longer still. Papagayo Design Center has worked on Costa Rica's Pacific coast since 1982. Browse by category above, or start with homes — the largest group here — and the master plans, which show the widest range of scale.