
Earth Sciences


Restoring Palouse Prairie: A field trip with Chris Duke
Chris Duke and the Phoenix Conservancy are among the groups restoring Palouse Prairie.
Dominated by forbs—flowering plants—the Palouse Prairie is an endangered landscape.
Podcast episode coming soon.

Hallmarks: Orrin Pilkey

The salmon king

It’s in the water

Volcano views
Gallery—photos of the North Cascades
Photography by Zach Mazur
Permanence
The ancient Roman architect Vitruvius conceived of three primary virtues for structures: beauty, utility, and firmitas, a term that can be translated as permanence. Naturally, buildings can’t be crafted to last through time immemorial. What is permanence if even stone monuments wear away into sand?
Moreover, as Washington State University architecture professor Ayad Rahmani asks in this issue’s essay, maybe the longevity of structures should be questioned. Rahmani writes about Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic view of buildings and their inevitable decay, and that we should perhaps consider their “measured return to the earth.”
We don’t really expect our buildings to last forever, but we rely … » More …
Beneath the surface
