ORO Editions

Veridical Patina

records long-term weathering effects on buildings, embracing entropic process and refinishing.

Weather Ravages

so aging lovely becomes time and life, compressed

Gracefully aging materials remind inhabitants that architecture is a conversation across time. Veridical means truthful and coinciding with reality. It is easy to think of buildings as something permanent or immovable; however, they are actually in constant interaction and dialogue with Nature. Natural materials have variable surface—wood grain, stone veining, etc. Controlled weathering-by-design extends this inherent resonant beauty and furthers human biophilic affinity as direct experience and as wider awareness. When architecture forwards through the record written in its materials how it relates to its climatic context, inhabitants are reminded that what they see in any moment is a single point in a matrix of dynamic processes. Architecture, like people, inevitably ages. Designers can respond accordingly, utilizing materials that elegantly illustrate weathering interactions and, in their patina, express a compressed history of Nature's presence and by association the human lives lived there. In turn, especially when the materials are local, this contributes to a place-empathetic architecture at once regional and site-specific.