What This Is
Site Persists is a publication about buildings that last. Not buildings that are new, or fashionable, or optimized for a particular market — but buildings that are still standing, still functioning, still worth the effort of maintenance after decades or centuries in a particular landscape.
The focus is on materials, structures, and the conditions they exist within: climate, geology, weather, time. How does rammed earth behave after forty years of freeze-thaw cycling? What happens to a copper-clad facade in coastal salt air? When a turf roof reaches the end of its second decade, what does the membrane look like underneath? These are the questions that interest this publication, and they are best answered by sustained observation rather than speculation.
The projects featured here are selected for what they demonstrate about durability, resilience, and the relationship between a structure and its site. Some are well-known; others are not. Scale varies — from single-room shelters to landscape-scale water systems. What they share is an approach to building that prioritizes longevity over novelty, material honesty over applied finish, and the slow accumulation of character over the appearance of completion.
What This Is Not
This is not a lifestyle publication. There are no tours of interiors styled for photography, no discussions of property value or market trends. The buildings featured here are presented as structures in landscapes — what they are made of, how they work, and what time has done to them.
This is also not a publication about crisis or decline. The buildings documented here are maintained. They are attended to with competence and, in many cases, with evident care. The work of keeping a building whole over decades is not a footnote to the design; it is the subject.
Material Studies
Alongside featured projects, Site Persists publishes material studies — detailed examinations of individual building materials, their properties, their behavior over time, and the techniques required to work with them well. These studies draw on construction science, field observation, and the accumulated knowledge of long practice. They are written for anyone with a serious interest in how buildings are made and how they endure.
Notes on Practice
Periodically, Site Persists publishes short observational essays — notes from the ongoing work of attending to buildings and landscapes. These are not technical guides but reflections on what it means to maintain a structure over time: what changes, what stays, what requires attention, and what can be left alone.