BryantRivera
A portfolio of work exploring adaptive reuse, low-carbon construction and buildings that give something back to the street.
About
My route into architecture began on a building site, not in a studio - and that pragmatism still shapes how I work.
After my A-Levels I spent four years as a technician in a small North Devon practice, learning the craft from the ground up before carrying that technical backbone into my degree at the University of Bath.
Seeing a project move from a first conversation to a finished, inhabited building gives me real satisfaction - particularly when it improves a single family's day, or a whole community's sense of its own high street.
My recent work focuses on the climate crisis: retrofit over demolition, low-carbon and reused materials, and proposals that treat what already exists as a catalogue of parts rather than a problem to clear away.
Education
Experience
- Six-month placement spanning RIBA Stages 1-4, from bespoke housing to the adaptive reuse of large buildings across the city.
- Worked at a larger scale than before, embedded within multi-disciplinary design teams.
- Learned to work with existing fabric - liaising with Local Planning and Historic England on sensitive interventions.
- Began as a junior technician on a four-year apprenticeship; left working autonomously at intermediate level.
- Delivered projects across residential extensions, community centres and a multi-million-pound resort redevelopment.
- Ran a new private house through Stages 3-6 - basic contract administration and bi-weekly site meetings.
Skills
Highly proficient in drafting and 3D modelling, with strong digital rendering and a detail-oriented, problem-solving mindset across the full design and delivery process.
Full UK driving licence (Cat B). References available on request.
The Locarno
My proposal re-inhabits the vacant Old Town Hall and Corn Exchange - known locally as the Locarno. Built in 1852 and Grade II listed, it was gutted by two fires in 2002 and 2004 and left as an abandoned shell.
As a highly active public building, the project stitches together the clashing architectural languages and urban grains of Old Town - a nexus the community can rally around and draw new civic pride from.
An adjacent 1970s office block is demolished and used as a 'catalogue of parts': materials returned in their raw, unapologetic state, with lighter new interventions sparking a dialogue between new and old.
Work
Bristol
BS1 4QS