Sand castles in the sand: playing with impermanence.

“La Sagrada Familia.” © 2009 Funky Chickens. Rights: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. The nativity façade of the Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família bears a striking resemblance to sand castles built using the drip technique. Sagrada Família, as the Basílica is popularly known, was originally planned by Antoni Gaudí i Cornet in the late 1800s and has been under construction for well over a century.

“History is a child building a sand-castle by the sea, and that child is the whole majesty of man’s power in the world.” — attributed to Herakleitos of Ephesus, c. 500 B.C., known for his “panta rhei” philosophy of flow or transience.

“This treaty is not worth the sand it’s printed on!” —Patrick Star.

Screen capture from the Nickelodeon video game “SpongeBob & Patrick Sand Wars.”

“Sand Castles In The Sand.”

• Patrick: Ohhhh. What happened?
• SpongeBob: I’ll tell you what happened Patrick… I got carried away.
• Patrick: Me too… was it worth it?
• SpongeBob: No, no, it wasn’t. What started out as a fun dream turned into a horrible, brutal, nightmare. As the winds of time changed the silvery sands of these dunes to a new landscape, so let us hope that our own winds of change will change our spiritual dunes to a landscape of peace. Oh buddy, let’s never forget this lesson.
• Lifeguard: Let’s also not forget who's going to clean this place up.

Speech by Spongebob Squarepants in “Sand Castles In The Sand,” after his friend Patrick drops a sand atomic bomb on Spongebob’s sand castle, causing Spongebob to retaliate by crashing a sand fighter jet into Patrick’s giant sand robot.

Contemplating the value of change while playing in the sand.

Latest pins: Sand as a means to reflect on value of, human participation in, impermanence of natural world: http://t.co/ugtdFzLSgw

— Desk. (@leanneriding) July 26, 2014

For some reason I am very charmed by this video of a sand dollar roomba-ing around http://t.co/5Z8scSvab9 first thing I pinned yesterday

— Desk. (@leanneriding) July 25, 2014

…probably because of Land Artists such as Jim Denevan and Andrés Amador who do much the same on a massive scale. http://t.co/CbGfUy855s

— Desk. (@leanneriding) July 25, 2014

Artist Gunilla Klingberg rolled patterns on a beach using a modified beach cleaning tractor — http://t.co/JgHKdtsLxt

— Desk. (@leanneriding) July 25, 2014

A photo competition seeking out beauty in science http://t.co/eS0Vf7zlnu The winning shot (by a Canadian) @artofsci pic.twitter.com/KrEKDQr8FP

— Stroumboulopoulos (@strombo) July 24, 2014

The construction may outlast the architect, but it will not last forever.

Designers play with particles.

These gorgeous, cascading lamps are made out of sand! http://t.co/PItRtlqtrN pic.twitter.com/oNvvQCmJfL

— Design Milk (@designmilk) August 17, 2014

RT @inhabitat: Danielle Trofe’s LED hourglass lamps powered by falling sand http://t.co/Xxx83ZCZPB pic.twitter.com/cLeVtOXNQA (via @Raffi_RC)

— Desk. (@leanneriding) August 17, 2014

Learning what it means to shape the earth.

“‘Ready for the children.’ Creating a piece of land art with interaction from local school children on Coney beach Porthcawl alongside events from Porthcawl Lifeguards. 25 June 2010.” ©2010 Mooganic. Rights: CC BY 2.0.