Construction Observations from the Iberian Penninsula

This winter break I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Spain and Portugal with the School of Building Construction at Virginia Tech to study architecture, urban planning, renewable energy, and culture. As the observations made abroad could fill a hundred blog entries, I am going to dedicate this entry to a few specific construction practices observed while traveling the Iberian Penninsula. The topics covered in this section include historic preservation, adaptive reuse and renewable energy systems. These topics represent the most commonly observed differences in construction practice between Spain/Portugal and America; this entry hopefully will shed some light on these differences for those not able to make the trek themselves.