castles in the sand

I dreamt of dungeons and dragons before, I remember how girls during my childhood fantasize about princes in their magnificent castles. In all its majesty and elegance, a castle symbolizes an edifice for the rich and powerful, for kings and the royal families. So in a third world country like the Philippines, it is uncommon to see castles built.

But farfetched the idea maybe, I have stumbled online about a proposal to have a castle erected in the Philippines.

We require someone who is able to design a real castle, complete with towers, secret/hidden passages, medieval features, non-symmetrical layout.

CONCEPT

This building will be a top destination for events and high-profile individuals in Palawan, and will be known throughout the Philippines for its appearance and unique-ness. It is a fantastic opportunity for an architect or designer to add to his portfolio and make his name known.

Most architects think in terms of boxes. Box-shaped rooms, box-shaped houses, box-shaped buildings. That is absolutely what we don't want. We need someone who can "think outside the box" -- not necessarily an architect, because initially we require the *concept*. Without a good concept, there is nothing.

Although modern materials can be used, they will not be visible. The building will appear *as if* it was constructed 500 years ago, using 500-year-old technology such as arches, very thick walls, smaller arched windows.

The modern trend in architecture is towards the space age: glass, stainless steel, plastics, bright colors and so on. We need the complete opposite, namely architecture of the middle ages: Stone, wood, metal, tile, whitewash (non-oil-based white paint) inside. No visible plastic, no modern paints, no large glass windows.

Like how a kid eagerly plays building castles in the sand, I got interested in submitting my own design.


This is my conceptual design, free-hand rough sketches using colored pencils. I know I can further improve the whole look of the castle; I just had to submit initial sketches to see how the proponents of the castle idea take my creative concept.

final dose:
I’m crossing my fingers this won’t be building castles in the sky.

 

A.Cortes Architecture + Design

For the days, weeks and months that the Corteses have not been paying much attention to this family blog of ours, our apologies for not updating you on what's been going on in our lives. No worries, soon we will have much to tell and we're pretty excited to share what's been up these past few months.

Now the reason for the silent hiatus is --- aside from the usual "being very busy" excuse, our constant "updater" - the big daddy, Toni, has been preoccupied trying to create his personal work website., Although not completely done yet, here is the sneak peek.

Go and visit http://cortes-architecture.webs.com/ and check out his personal works!

You can even like the pictures in the work gallery page, like this one for example - CIRCLE'S INTERIORS - A.Cortés Architecture + Design

final dose:
soon it will come in a dot com

 

posted by A.Cortes on 7:47 AM under

Be the first to comment!

Search