07/15/2026
Photo dump from Mallorca. Couldn’t stop looking at this one.
This is Els Porxets, the pilgrim quarters at the Santuari de Lluc. Pilgrims have been sheltered on this mountainside for 700 years. Animals stabled below, people sleeping above — and it’s still doing its job.
Look at the material logic. Stone does all the compression work: columns, corbels, the loaded base walls. Wood does all the spanning: beams, rafters, railings. The ground level got stone because hooves, water, and manure destroy wood. The wet, abusive zone gets the durable material. The dry zone gets the workable one.
And nothing is hidden. Rafter tails exposed. Timber outriggers pinned straight through the wall to brace the railings. Plaster showing generations of repair. When you can see every connection, you can fix every connection.
We talk about building for the next 100 years. Then you stand in a corridor like this and realize 100 years is the modest goal. Done right, with honest materials and repairable assemblies, a building doesn’t have a lifespan. It just has a maintenance schedule.
That’s the standard we carry home to Maryland.
