The Brag Basket is open! This one is for April 18-20, 2014
What can you do in the Brag Basket?
- introduce yourself
- share some great news from this week
- congratulate a friend
- applaud for each other
- confess your undying love for rural places
How do you join in?
- Below this post is the comment section. Add your brag there.
- If you are reading this by email, just reply to the email with your brag. I’ll add it to the comments.
Don’t like to brag? Just share some good news for yourself or a friend.
Do you have to be from a small town? Well, no, not really. Just don’t make it an ad. I delete the ads that people stick in here. If you talk more about the people involved than the things, you’ll be fine.
It’s a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.
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This brag came in via email from Portugal, about a project located in a rural town of 10,000:
Hello Small Biz Survival,
We are an architecture studio based in Lisbon, Portugal; established in 2008 by Inês Martins de Brito (Portugal) and Gilberto Rodriguez (USA).
Our interests in architecture are greatly influenced by the nuances found within small town environments. Gilberto was born and raised in a small agricultural town of 3000 located in South Texas, where emptiness, subtlety, unassuming architecture, horizontality, and spatial continuity are all very present and together with Inês’ upbringing in a small neighborhood in Lisbon, have joined together with her influences of: history, materiality, superimposition of elements, light and water to project architecture with an environmental awareness to reach an integrated expression between architecture and landscape in sensitively located sites.
We are pleased to announce that one of our projects, “Castle Environment” was selected and is in the current 2014 AIA Center for Emerging Professionals Annual Exhibition at the AIA National Headquarters.
Washington, DC. USA
now – April 30, 2014
Please find attached a project description below:
Between the urban landscape and the natural environment exists a path formed by individual rammed earth elements that adapt to the existing topography. These components, with their blurred contours are rigorously positioned in search of a close relationship with the pronounced texture of the castle walls and the natural surroundings.
Using subtle movements in broad gestures, horizontal platforms are created that generate intimate spaces. Pools of water are inserted in spaces where one can sit and contemplate the ambience. These conditions are essential for the sensory perception of space and landscape for individuals or a collective whole. Access to the castle is approached through the dense woodland providing a proximity to the elements of earth, water and vegetation.
The introduction of new materials express the nature of the intervention and establishes a new relationship between urban morphology, the density of trees and the walls of the Castle. It is an intervention that is generated from its environment and the existing conditions. The repetition of these elements when positioned closer together or further apart, create a new density of natural progression that accentuate the depth and spatial continuity. The body moves through the sequence of spaces and experiences the subtle changes of color and the contrasts of light and shadow, all defined by the natural and urban landscape.
Castle Environment _ 1st prize international competition
Location: Buñol, Spain
Area: 1365 m²
Date: 2011-
Keep up the excellent work on the blog, we follow it with great admiration!
Thank you for your consideration.
Kind regards,
Inês Martins de Brito . Gilberto Rodriguez
You can see an illustration of their project on the Brito.Rodriguez blog.
Congratulations to Inês and Gilberto for a successful blending of rural into their design.