U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City

Guatemala City, Guatemala

U.S. Embassy in Guatemala City

MKA provided the master planning and bridging design for a U.S. New Embassy Compound (NEC) comprised of multiple buildings totaling 570,066 ft² and civil site design for the steeply sloping 9.4-acre greenfield site. Ensconced in steep mountain foothills more than 1,500 m above sea level, a terrace design tamed the site’s topography to accommodate a new chancery building, marine security guard residence, support facilities, plaza, garden, and below-grade parking for 500 vehicles. The civil design accounted for construction scheduling and sequencing to develop solutions such as a counterfort wall to mitigate the grade differential while reducing lengthy and expensive mass grading operations, a rainwater harvesting system to augment the cooling tower make-up water, an on-site wastewater treatment plant that produced recycled water for irrigation, and a roadside stormwater management swale that treated and conveyed stormwater runoff down the slope.