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Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast » South Texas » Kingsville to Alice » Falfurrias and Vicinity (Brooks County) » Brooks County Safety Rest Area

Brooks County Safety Rest Area

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1998, Richter Architects. U.S. 281, 8 miles south of Falfurrias
  • (Photograph by Gerald Moorhead)

Acting as a gateway to the border, the rest area sits in a 12.5-acre site with one thousand oak trees strewn between the travel lanes of a busy highway. The collection of restrooms, picnic pavilions, garden walls, and pathways, designed for the Texas Department of Transportation, transitions visitors on their way south to the Rio Grande through the skillful use of vernacular shapes and materials that conjure images of early ranching settlements along the river. Using both Mexican brick and recycled concrete chunks to create irregularly coursed walls, the informally arranged, flat-roofed, naturally ventilated buildings tightly nestled below the oak groves epitomize context-sensitive design.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
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Data

What's Nearby

Brooks County Courthouse
García Building

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "Brooks County Safety Rest Area", [Falfurrias, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-01-KA19.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 261-261.

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