For Hispanic-American buyers shopping Lima from Miami or LA, AVA 159 is usually the first building a serious broker drops on the table. Seventeen folded floors on Av. Parque Armendáriz, a travertine-and-glass skin that breaks the standard high-rise grid, and an Architizer A+Awards win in 2017 that beat Manhattan’s 432 Park Avenue in popular voting. Eight years on, the Miraflores tower is still the reference point when international investors ask which Peruvian residential project carries genuine architectural pedigree. This deep dive covers the award context, the architects behind it, the materiality that won the jury, current resale pricing, and how AVA 159 fits into the broader 2026 Miraflores market.

In this article

• The 2017 Architizer A+Awards: what it actually means
• Av. Parque Armendáriz 159: address and walkability
• Marsino Arquitectura and the folded-floor logic
• Materiality: travertine, glass, exposed concrete, local hardwoods
• Floor plans, square footage and resale pricing
• Marcan: the developer behind the project
• 2026 Miraflores benchmark: where AVA 159 sits today
• Frequently asked questions

The 2017 Architizer A+Awards and why it made global headlines

The Architizer A+Awards are the world’s largest independent architecture prize, drawing entries from more than 100 countries. The fifth edition, judged in 2017, named AVA 159 a Popular Winner in the Residential — Multi-Unit Housing — High Rise (16+ floors) category. The shortlist that year was unusually heavyweight: Rafael Viñoly’s 432 Park Avenue in Manhattan, Shenzhen’s One Shenzhen Bay, Australia’s Upper House in Carlton, and 160 East 22nd Street in New York. That a Lima building won the open public vote — across architects and artists from more than 100 countries — became front-page news in Peru.

Worth flagging up front for U.S. readers: AVA 159 didn’t win because of budget. It won because the jury and the public agreed the building solved something most high-rises don’t bother to address — how to keep a 17-story residential block from reading as a vertical stack of identical floor plates. Every floor is geometrically distinct. Every apartment hangs its own balcony. From the Quebrada de Armendáriz gully below, the facade reads less like a tower and more like a shelf of slightly rotated boxes. In a city that had spent two decades putting up cookie-cutter residential towers, that gesture was what moved votes.

The award also landed at an inflection point for Peruvian architecture. It came alongside the international rise of Barclay & Crousse and a wider recalibration of Lima’s reputation as a contemporary design city. For Hispanic-American buyers tracking Latin American markets, this is the kind of credential that translates: an Architizer win is the closest equivalent in the architecture world to what the AIA Honor Awards or the RIBA Awards mean in the U.S. and U.K.

Av. Parque Armendáriz 159: address and walkability

The address gives the building its name: Av. Parque Armendáriz 159, on the first block, a short walk from the descent that connects Miraflores with Barranco along the Costa Verde coastal highway. If you’ve spent time in the neighborhood, you know this stretch is one of the few where Miraflores actually opens up to the Pacific. The Quebrada de Armendáriz acts as a green lung; tower views stay unobstructed; the malecón is two minutes on foot.

Site constraints were tight: a 1,180.60 m² (12,708 sq ft) lot supporting nearly 18,310 m² (197,090 sq ft) of built area. The architects solved the equation by stacking 17 floors on a small footprint and breaking the facade outward to capture lateral light and diagonal views. The practical outcome is that nearly every apartment in AVA 159 has either ocean or canyon views — a rare condition for a building of this density inside the district. For deeper context on Miraflores pricing, our recent Miraflores price-per-square-meter 2026 guide walks through the numbers.

For an investor used to U.S. coastal benchmarks, the immediate context reads as Miami’s Brickell Key in walkability terms but with the green-belt amenity of, say, the Pacific Palisades bluff. Larcomar shopping, the malecón running track, and Miraflores’ core gastronomic strip are all under a 12-minute walk. Public transit access via the Metropolitano on Av. 28 de Julio adds rental liquidity for short-term lease strategies. Premium 17th-floor flats clear north of US$ 8,000 per night in high season on Airbnb, Booking and VRBO — a yield profile that holds up against most Sunny Isles condos.

Marsino Arquitectura and the folded-floor logic

The design comes out of Marsino Arquitectura, a Santiago-based studio led by Jorge Marsino P. and María Inés Buzzoni G. Per the ArchDaily project record, the full credits add Francisca Valenzuela R. as collaborating architect, plus Marcan in-house (Rodrigo Martínez D. and Karina Puente F.) and Lima-based Miranda Arquitectos and Reusche-Reyna for site-specific consulting and construction administration. It was a binational team — Santiago bringing the formal language, Lima bringing the regulatory and contextual reading.

Marsino’s track record explains the hire. Prior projects include the Independencia Public Library in Santiago, multiple Codelco corporate buildings, and a series of award-winning residential blocks in Chile. The studio operates somewhere between late modernism and the formally freer language of European peers like Sou Fujimoto or BIG. AVA 159 was their first major Lima commission and remains the most internationally recognized piece in their portfolio.

The design strategy is simple on paper, complex in execution. The architects defined eight base apartment typologies and then, instead of stacking identical plates, they rotated, shifted and offset them floor by floor. The building reads as 17 distinct plans sharing a common structural core — a configuration that demanded considerable coordination on structure and MEP routing. If you’re tracking comparable approaches in Lima Top, our coverage on premium architecture in Miraflores tracks the next-generation projects pushing similar ideas.

Materiality: travertine, glass, exposed concrete, local hardwoods

Materials carried real weight in the jury’s decision. The exterior pairs travertine marble in large-format slabs with floor-to-ceiling tempered glass. Every balcony — and they’re all different — uses frameless glass railings to preserve the vertical reading of the facade. Exposed concrete shows up in the slab edges acting as horizontal banding, leaving the structure visible rather than hiding it under the painted stucco that flattens most of the Armendáriz corridor.

Inside, the logic flips. Apartments use local hardwoods for floors and millwork, the same travertine marble for principal bathrooms, and a wall finish program that keeps warm tones over neutral backgrounds. The decision was deliberate: Marsino wanted a clear contrast between the mineral discipline of the exterior and the warmth of the interior. Inkas Marble, the project’s stone supplier, documents the spec in detail.

Specifics matter at this price point. Kitchens come with natural-stone countertops and concealed ducting; principal bathrooms have cross-ventilation and full-wall stone cladding. Top-floor flats integrate dual-exposure terraces of roughly 40 m² (430 sq ft) above the conditioned area. This is the kind of execution that makes AVA 159 hold up against Brickell or Wynwood condos: square footage isn’t just bigger, it’s better resolved.

Floor plans, square footage and 2026 resale pricing

The building has 17 floors and 72 apartments across eight base typologies. Active resale inventory ranges from 127 m² (1,367 sq ft) flats — typically including one parking space and storage — up to 230 m² (2,476 sq ft) premium flats on the 17th floor with direct ocean views. A handful of mid-level floors host duplex units with double-height living rooms, varying with the facade break of each level.

On the secondary market, May 2026 listings on Urbania and aggregator portals show units at AVA 159 from roughly US$ 360,000 (S/ 1,350,000) for compact flats up to around US$ 800,000 (S/ 3,000,000) for the larger 17th-floor units. Implied price-per-square-meter sits between US$ 3,500 and US$ 4,200, comfortably above the district benchmark of approximately US$ 2,600/m² for new apartments in Miraflores. The premium tracks with what you’d expect: international award, ocean view, scarce secondary supply.

Amenities support the price point. AVA 159 offers a terrace with two BBQ stations, two swimming pools, a squash court and a fully-equipped gym. Add a double-height lobby, basement storage and covered parking. For an international buyer used to Miami or São Paulo amenity packages, the box checks. Cross-referencing with our Cluster 8 coverage, the iconic projects of Lima Top and the Miraflores Malecón hyperlocal guide are useful companions.

Marcan: the developer behind the project

Marcan Inmobiliaria y Constructora was the client and developer. Over a decade in operation, focused exclusively on Lima Top — primarily Miraflores and San Isidro — with a portfolio that includes Costa de Lima on Av. 28 de Julio, Pod La Mar on Av. La Mar, and Pod in the financial corridor. Recent reporting from Gestión confirms Marcan is committing S/ 340 million across three new 2026 projects: two office buildings (San Isidro, San Borja) and a Miraflores mixed-use.

This isn’t a volume developer. Marcan competes on location curation, architecture quality and brand discipline rather than on scale. AVA 159 was the project that crystallized that thesis and turned it into a sales argument for everything that came after. Walk into the Costa de Lima or Pod La Mar sales gallery today and the first poster on the wall is the Architizer trophy.

For an investor weighing developer risk, that record matters. Marcan has delivered projects, a verifiable international award, consistent national press coverage, and a publicly announced 2026 pipeline with hard numbers. It isn’t Peru’s largest builder, but in its niche — premium residential in Lima Top — it sits among the names that move the needle on a comparison sheet.

2026 Miraflores benchmark: where AVA 159 sits today

Year-end 2025 left Miraflores with an average apartment sale price near S/ 9,850/m² (~US$ 2,600/m²) per the Urbania Index, a +4.8% nominal increase year-over-year. The district remains Lima’s most liquid residential market, accounting for roughly 14% of all Lima Top sale transactions. On the malecón corridor — Armendáriz, Cisneros, Reserva — entry prices start near S/ 11,500/m² and clear S/ 14,000/m² for direct ocean-view units.

AVA 159 sits at the upper end of that band. Implied resale pricing of US$ 3,500–US$ 4,200/m² puts the building in the top 10% of the district by ticket-per-square-meter. The driver is structural: international award, canyon-to-ocean view, low unit turnover, and a finite supply of 72 apartments produces an asset that behaves more like a collectible than a commodity. Active secondary supply rarely exceeds 4–5 simultaneous listings according to portal records as of May 2026.

For Hispanic-American buyers, the read is straightforward. Versus a comparable Edgewater or Sunny Isles condo, AVA 159 offers significantly lower entry tickets (US$ 360,000 vs. US$ 700,000+), a Pacific view that’s hard to replicate, and a Peruvian regulatory framework that allows unrestricted foreign ownership. The trade-off is resale liquidity, which remains thinner than U.S. coastal markets. For buy-and-hold strategies with short- or medium-term rental income, AVA 159 enters the conversation.

Quick facts: AVA 159

• Address: Av. Parque Armendáriz 159, Miraflores, Lima
• Architect: Marsino Arquitectura (Jorge Marsino P., María Inés Buzzoni G.) + Marcan in-house + Miranda Arquitectos + Reusche-Reyna (Peru)
• Developer: Marcan Inmobiliaria y Constructora
• Floors: 17
• Apartments: 72
• Typologies: 8 base layouts; sizes from 127 m² (1,367 sq ft) to 230 m² (2,476 sq ft)
• Lot: 1,180.60 m² (12,708 sq ft)
• Built area: 18,310 m² (197,090 sq ft)
• Design: 2011–2012 — Construction: 2013–2016
• Recognition: Architizer A+Awards 2017, Multi-Unit Housing — High Rise (16+ floors), Popular Winner
• Materials: travertine marble, tempered glass, exposed concrete, local hardwoods
• Amenities: two pools, gym, squash court, terrace with two BBQ stations
• 2026 resale range: US$ 360,000 – US$ 800,000 (reference)

Frequently asked questions about AVA 159

Bottom line

AVA 159 reset the conversation about high-rise residential design in Lima. It was the first Peruvian building to win an Architizer A+Awards in a major competitive category, and nearly a decade later it still functions as the obligatory reference point for what high-end residential architecture in Miraflores can be. If you’re shopping Lima from Miami or LA, this is probably the first building you’ll see in the broker deck. There’s a reason for that.

Information about AVA 159 is sourced from public records and official communications from the developer as of May 2026. Specifications, pricing, and delivery dates may change. Always confirm current details directly with the project’s sales team.

Looking at a unit in AVA 159 or a comparable Miraflores project? Penthouse.pe runs private curation for international investors and buyers in Lima Top. Get in touch and we’ll build a personalized shortlist with real availability, comparables and rental projections.