Dining terrace: this restaurant in Portugal's rugged north responds to and celebrates its wild setting.Graduates of Porto's architectural school and in practice in the city since 1990, Antonio Portugal & Manuel Maria Reis are in the vanguard of an emerging generation of Portuguese architects A
adj. Possessing or exhibiting tact; considerate and discreet: a tactful person; a tactful remark. tact work epitomises what critics and curators describe as 'critical scarcity', making use of limited budgets, materials and construction techniques in a way that responds imaginatively to the Portuguese condition. Their sensitive remodelling of the historic Casa da Cerca into a library and archive (AR July 2004) helped an antiquated structure make the challenging transition from decaying relic to working public building. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] There is a strongly enigmatic and understated quality to their approach, epitomised by this project for a restaurant near the village of Brufe, in Portugal's rugged far north. Utterly simple in conception and execution, the building is an almost imperceptible im·per·cep·ti·ble adj. 1. Impossible or difficult to perceive by the mind or senses: an imperceptible drop in temperature. 2. horizontal blip in the landscape, its long, low slung slung v. Past tense and past participle of sling1. slung Verb the past of sling1 slung sling volume echoing the forms of the granite terraces on which it is poised. Much of its bulk is, in fact, excavated into the hillside, so that the roof becomes part of the terrain, a grass-covered plateau edged with a minimal upstand Up`stand´ v. i. 1. To stand up; to be erected; to rise. At once upstood the monarch, and upstood The wise Ulysses. - Cowper. to prevent mishaps. From this vantage point, diners Diners can mean:
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dining takes place in a large, airy room illuminated by a long slash of picture window glazing, while the cooking and serving end of things is kept well out of sight in the buried rear of the building. Rough horizontal planks of timber are employed to clad both lower terrace and box, giving it a rustic, barn-like character that echoes the vernacular architecture vernacular architecture Common domestic architecture of a region, usually far simpler than what the technology of the time is capable of maintaining. In highly industrialized countries such as the U.S. of the surrounding farm buildings. The judges were intrigued by the project, whose presentation embodied the sparse, enigmatic quality of its architecture. They were especially impressed by how the building related to its setting, deferring to the landscape but celebrating it, and the way the simple materials were combined with a restrained formal language to achieve powerful effects. C. S. |
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