Lime, Cork and Patience

Lime render does not finish when the scaffolding comes down. It carbonates for months, lightening and hardening, and it will keep moving with the building rather than cracking away from it.

Cork is the other coastal material we keep returning to. Expanded cork board insulates, absorbs sound, and can be left exposed — it is one of very few materials that performs and finishes at the same time.

Both demand something from the client: the acceptance that the building will look better in year five than in week one. We have learned to show weathered samples at the first meeting rather than the last.