The patina is the building

We spent the first winter at the Olot workshop arguing about coatings. The client wanted the plate sealed — a clear matte lacquer to stop the bleeding rust before it reached the concrete. We refused, and for three months nobody was sure we were right.

A surface that keeps moving

Weathering steel does not rust the way mild steel does. The first oxide layer is loose and orange, almost ugly. Then it tightens. By the second year the plate has gone to a dense charcoal-brown that protects the metal underneath instead of eating it. You are not fighting the corrosion; you are letting it finish the detailing for you.

We design the cut and the fold. The weather designs the colour. Neither of us could do the building alone.

The hardest drawing to release is the one where the steel is still bright. On site in Rodez we watched a fabricator hose down a fresh panel just to see the rust come up faster, and we had to tell him to stop — the speed was never the point. The slowness is what reads as honest once the void is dark and the light is low.