International Prize Winner, Miguel Marcelino

Casal Saloio - Museum of Rurality, Miguel Marcelino, Portugal

Interactive architecture. The intervention is one of the few examples documenting the early occupations of the land, an old and humble rural house, with several addenda and modifications (within the logic of informality and simple satisfaction of needs) until reopening as a museum space. The outcome of the contemporary project is a responsible architecture (which allows us to read its evolution through the broken and irregular geometry) that interacts with its surroundings through material, structural, and cultural choices but proposes innovation by revitalizing the vocabulary. The project, born from a competition, interacts with the existing by inserting itself with a functional, cultural destination but with the potential capacity to renew itself with other uses in the future.
The content, a museum of rurality, is closely connected with the container, which distinguishes itself by a simple solution that enhances organic growth over time in a proactive way.