Cocolí Locks
Grupo Unidos por el Canal (GUPC) · Panama City, Panama · 2016
The Cocolí Locks form the Pacific side of the Panama Canal Expansion and were designed for the larger Neo-Panamax generation of ships. The complex uses three sequential lock chambers, rolling gates and water-saving basins rather than simply enlarging the original canal technology. Its enormous concrete volumes are primarily functional, yet the repetition of gates, basins and service structures produces a distinct contemporary infrastructural landscape. The project demonstrates how twenty-first-century civil engineering has extended rather than replaced the spatial logic of the original canal.