It's tempting to treat material selection as one of the last decisions in a project — a finishing layer applied once the real design work is done. We've found the opposite to be true: material is one of the first questions worth asking, because it determines so much of what follows.
Concrete, stone, timber, and brick don't just look different — they behave differently over decades. They weather, patina, and wear at different rates, and in different ways depending on climate and use. A material chosen for how it looks on day one can become a liability by year ten if its aging wasn't considered from the start.
We ask a simple question of every material we specify: how will this look, feel, and perform in twenty years, under the hands and weather of the people who'll actually use it? That question tends to rule out a lot of trend-driven choices, and it's led us toward a fairly consistent, restrained material palette across very different projects.