Two separate volumes create public space along a dense coastal road in Costa Rica.
FAMM Arquitectura designed Plaza Pochote in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica, to address the town's linear roadside development pattern. The 998-square-meter commercial project, completed in 2024, sits along the main road where public space is increasingly limited due to rapid growth. Lead architects Mariano Mesalles and Felipe Apéstegui opted against a continuous storefront layout. Instead, the design separates the program into two distinct built volumes. This configuration creates an open central plaza that serves as the primary organizing element for the site. By breaking the massing, the project introduces a void that functions as a public area within the commercial context. Thibault Cartier photographed the development, which emphasizes the space between buildings rather than just the retail structures themselves. The design provides a solution for commercial architecture in coastal areas where land availability and public accessibility are competing interests.
Makers and spatial designers can observe how breaking building mass creates functional public voids in high-density areas. This approach demonstrates how commercial projects can provide communal value by prioritizing site organization over continuous frontage.
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