Lime has been used on walls in this part of the world for two thousand years. We keep using it because nothing else behaves the way it does in the afternoon light.

The table went through eleven drawings before we cut the first board. Most of those drawings look nearly identical. That is how you know the process is working.

We drove south in October to choose stone. The quarries around Estremoz are unlike anywhere else — open wounds in pale earth, quiet except for the sound of water and machinery far below.

A plastered wall that has been patched, a beam that has been spliced, a floor tile that does not quite match: these are not failures. They are the building telling you its history.