Permanence and Impermanence
On materials that age with dignity and the architecture of time.
There is a paradox at the heart of all great architecture: the tension between permanence and impermanence. We build in stone to last centuries, yet every material we touch is quietly disintegrating, shifting, evolving with time.
The question is not whether change will occur—it will—but whether we design for graceful aging or resist it entirely. Modern construction often chooses resistance: sealed surfaces, protective coatings, materials engineered to appear frozen in time. But this denial of entropy creates its own problems. When these surfaces finally fail, they do so catastrophically.
The ancient builders understood something we've forgotten: that dignity in aging is a design choice. Travertine develops a patina. Bronze oxidizes to verdigris. Oak darkens and hardens. These materials don't fight time—they collaborate with it.
This is why we return again and again to the palette of antiquity. Not out of nostalgia, but because these materials have already proven their capacity to age beautifully across millennia. A limestone wall after 50 years looks better than it did on day one. A concrete facade sealed with polymer coating looks worse.
In our work, we select materials as one might choose companions for a long journey: not for their initial perfection, but for how they will evolve under stress. The goal is not to preserve the moment of completion forever, but to design a trajectory of transformation that honors both the structure and its inhabitants.
Time is the ultimate designer. Our role is simply to collaborate with it rather than resist it. The buildings that endure are those that accept this partnership from the beginning.