As we continue to mark the one-year anniversary of our Surface Perspectives series, we’re bringing together some of the themes that have emerged across the conversations to look more closely at the specification and use of stone.

The first article considered what informed specification means in practice, and why understanding performance, application and long-term value matters as much as appearance. But that raises another question: what happens when we stop thinking about stone primarily as a surface?

Across the interviews, there is a recurring sense that stone’s potential is much broader. It can be structural, sculptural, engineered, repaired, carved and integrated into architecture in ways that challenge the familiar distinction between structure and finish.

For Alex Bertrand of The Stonemasonry Company, that distinction is fundamental. His training with the Compagnons du Devoir du Tour de France gave him a grounding in stereotomy, geometry and the structural behaviour of stone. “The key lesson was that stone must be understood as a structural material first, not just a finish,” he says.

That perspective has helped inform the company’s development of post-tensioned, load-bearing stone systems, allowing extremely slender stone structures while maintaining safety and durability. It is an approach that challenges the assumption that stone belongs primarily to historic buildings, traditional construction or as a surface finish alone, which was underlined by the team's involvement with the Stone Demonstrator.

Another collaborative project that the company has been involved in is the pioneering 317 Finchley Road, which Ben Ayling of Lundhs points to as an example of what becomes possible when that assumption is challenged. The residential project is a rare UK example of load-bearing stone, and for Ayling it demonstrates what can happen “when stone is treated as a structural material rather than just a surface.”

The distinction is important because the conventional use of stone can involve separating the material from the building’s structure. Thin stone is fixed to steel or concrete, with the stone effectively becoming a finish applied to another construction system. Tamsin Pickeral of Szerelmey questions whether this is always the most productive way to think about the material.

“Stone lasts pretty much forever,” she says, pointing to the historic record of buildings and monuments that have survived for centuries. But she also notes that modern construction often involves slimmed-down stone fixed to steel or concrete, whereas traditionally “the stone was the structure”.

She does not suggest that traditional construction can simply be reinstated across the board. Instead, seeing opportunities for structural and post-tensioned stone in appropriate projects, potentially reducing the amount of steel and concrete required.

For Marcus Paine of Hutton Stone, this broader understanding of stone also requires greater knowledge of the material itself. As a fifth-generation quarrier and supplier, he is conscious of both “the potential and the limitations” of different stone types. That knowledge affects what can be extracted, how it can be worked and how it should ultimately be specified.

Stonemason Blair Woodland arrives at a similar conclusion through the much more tactile experience of laying stone. “Stone is never just a material, it defines the finished work,” he says. His experience working with slate in Cornwall has shown him how much variation can exist even between quarries situated only a few miles apart. As a result, colour, size and character all become part of the decision-making.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for sculptor and historic stone carver, Zoë Wilson, that individuality can also be a design asset. She works almost exclusively with British stone, allowing its geology to influence the finished work. “The geology, colour, fossil content and texture all influence the finished piece,” she says. Rather than attempting to remove those characteristics, her work allows them to remain visible.

Kitchen designer Faye Newman highlights that the same principle can apply to interior design. She sees stone as an opportunity to move beyond the conventional worktop, using full slabs to create splashbacks, shelves, islands and waterfall ends, while translucent stone can be backlit, while changes in thickness can become part of the design itself. For architects House of EM, materials similarly influence more than the appearance of a room. Emma Bodie and Matthew Sanders describe handling samples to assess tone, texture and finish, but also how materials will age and perform. “Materials aren’t just decorative; they shape the mood, character, and identity of a home.”

Even as an artist, that idea of material as an active part of architecture also emerges in Livia Spinolo’s work. Her practice brings together stone, clay, metals and found materials, with physical properties informing the development of each project. “The artwork usually develops from the material’s inherent characteristics rather than from an imposed artificial aesthetic,” she says.

Her Portland stone installation Ab Initio takes that principle into the landscape, using the physical properties of the stone to create a sculptural habitat. Here, stone is neither simply structure nor finish, but an element with an ecological function.

The conversations therefore suggest that the most interesting question is not whether stone should be regarded as structure or surface. It is whether the distinction is useful at all. When its strength, weight, geology, texture, variability and capacity for repair are understood, stone becomes a much more active design material. It can determine form as well as finish, influence construction as well as appearance, and contribute to the identity of a building rather than simply dressing it.

For an industry accustomed to treating stone as one material choice among many surface options, that represents a significant shift. The opportunity is not necessarily to use more stone, but to understand more fully what the stone already being specified can do.

London-based Nebbia Works was founded in 2018 by architects Madhav Kidao and Brando Posocco, who met while working at Heatherwick Studio. The practice is both making and material-centred, working across various scales and 3D disciplines, with architecture at its core. Notable projects to date range from cultural and public spaces to collaborations with brands including the V&A, Royal Academy of Arts, Coachella and Bulgari.

Fabrication and the physical qualities of materials inform projects from their earliest stages, which is particularly evident in Interlude, a monumental stone installation in Queenstown, New Zealand, where large raw boulders were digitally surveyed and fabricated before being shaped and assembled by local stonemasons.

Here, Madhav Kidao and Brando Posocco discuss their material-led approach, the challenges and opportunities of working with stone at an architectural scale, and why ageing, weathering and longevity are integral to the way they think about materials.

SS: Across Nebbia Works' projects, material seems to be an active part of the design process rather than something applied at the end. How does materiality shape your thinking from the earliest stages of a project, and what are you looking for in a material before you decide to work with it?

NW: Material exploration and experimentation has always been central to our design practice, and it's often among the earliest choices we make when starting a project. We're fascinated by the process of making, but also by the storytelling and sensory qualities that different materials bring to a project.

Material choice varies from project to project. We don't see ourselves as specialists in any one material or process. Sometimes a brief naturally points us towards a particular material; other times there's something we've been experimenting with in-house that we're looking for an excuse to use. We want our work to be honest about its construction and materiality, so the final outcome is most often a result of those early material choices and the fabrication process we select.

SS: Your work spans architecture, landscape, sculpture and objects, often sitting somewhere between art and the built environment. How does working across these different scales and disciplines influence the way you think about materials, and what keeps drawing you back to stone?

NW: Different scales ask different questions of a material. It's exciting to take everything we've learned about a material at one scale and see how much still holds true once you scale it up or down: which approaches still work, and what becomes possible instead. That's tied to the material's physical properties, such as its strength, malleability and brittleness, as well as to the qualities of its finish, where we might actively bring out a patina or try to mask it, and even to logistics and economics, where the practicalities of transport and installation can dictate our choice of material even when it satisfies every other requirement.

Stone speaks to all of these qualities at once, and there's a sweet spot where it makes the most sense. We'd been keen to use stone in its rawest, most monumental form for some time. There's a visceral power to it that we love, but it never quite came together until the opportunity for Interlude came up.

SS: You have described Interlude as a place to inhabit, converse, rest and reflect rather than simply a monument to look at. How does designing with stone change when the material is intended to be physically encountered and used?

NW: There are practical implications: making sure walkable surfaces are finished or treated to be non-slip (in this case, flamed steps with an additional anti-slip coating), as well as implications for the structural assembly, such as reinforced foundations and connection joints (earthquake mitigation was a factor here too).

But it was just as important to us to retain as much of the stone's original character as possible, to give as deep a tactile and symbolic connection to nature and geological time as we could. So we tried to do as little as possible to the source boulders. The main design driver was often simply the logistics of transporting such large, heavy pieces.

SS: The project combines photogrammetry and digital fabrication with significant hand shaping by local stonemasons. How do you see the relationship between digital technology and traditional stoneworking, and what can each bring to the other?

NW: We often work between digital and physical tools, trying to bring out the best of both. On this project, being based on the literal opposite side of the world from the site and fabricators (London to Queenstown, New Zealand) meant we had to lean on multiple forms of technology to design, adjust and communicate with the local fabricators, to bridge both the distance and the time difference. Ideally we'd have been at the quarry to talk through stone selection, cuts and shaping in person with the stonemasons, but beyond an initial visit that wasn't possible.

Having the team send us 360° videos of each stone let us build accurate 3D mesh models using photogrammetry software. From those, we could assemble the stones digitally and relay cutting instructions, or even CNC milling files. These were primarily a guide to the stonemasons, conveying the creative intent, but we were ultimately reliant on their years of hands-on expertise and knowledge of the material to decide how best to realise it.

We had a conceptual ambition and a visual outcome in mind, but stayed fully open to that being shaped by the realities of the stones we were working with. It was up to the stonemasons' eyes to orient and cut the rocks to match our vision as closely as possible, and their ingenuity often showed us how to make it work better, or find more beautiful outcomes, both in the stone selection itself, in terms of geometry and geological composition, and in how to use the stones most efficiently. One especially memorable moment was their insight into how to orient a single large stone so that both flights of steps could be cut from it.

The project also brought together two stone yards: one specialising in CNC machining, who made the major cuts and the stairs, and another who handled assembly, minor hand-shaping and final finishing. Stones travelled back and forth between the two. Ultimately, our hope was for the work to feel timeless, as if it had already been there for a thousand years, not reliant on, or a showcase for, the technology that made it possible, but using that technology simply to help realise it.

SS: The project deliberately leaves raw, split and finished surfaces visible, while anticipating that weathering and use will gradually alter the stone. How important is change and ageing to the way you think about materiality?

NW: This matters enormously to us, especially with a brief like Interlude's: to create a place of reflection meant to last a thousand years. Ageing, erosion and decay aren't an afterthought here, they're built into the design from the start.

We're drawn to stone partly for its beauty and variety, but just as much for how its connection to deep time humbles us and inspires a kind of awe. We wanted Interlude to feel man-made, but from some indeterminate moment, neither ancient nor new. The tool marks and cut surfaces sit deliberately alongside the raw, millennia-old faces of the boulders, a visible conversation between the two. And we know that conversation will keep changing: the freshness of every cut will soften with time, weather into the stone, and eventually feel as though it had always been there.

SS: More broadly, what do you think architects and designers can learn from working directly with stone, its geology, weight, limitations and longevity, at a time when material choice is increasingly discussed in terms of carbon and performance?

NW: There's a reason humanity keeps returning to stone. We understand its strength and longevity instinctively, just from its presence. It underlies some of our earliest and longest-lasting forms of shelter and architecture, a material that has already proven itself over millennia before we ever touch it.

Stone also carries a kind of romance, a beauty that can't be replicated. You feel its weight and its quality simply by looking at it, by watching how it performs and ages. That said, it's undeniably harder to work with right now than many synthetic alternatives; it asks more of you.

But there's real value in that difficulty. Working with something that already exists, and adapting your design to it rather than manufacturing a material to fit your intentions, changes how you think about the whole process. It's a more honest, more patient way of designing, and perhaps a necessary one as we reckon more seriously with carbon and performance.

What if the cost of stone depends on how we choose to use it?

One of the perceptions that continues to limit the wider adoption of indigenous stone in contemporary construction is that it is simply too expensive. But what if the cost of stone depends, in part, on how we choose to use it?

The economics of stone are more complicated than the price of a finished product. Processing, yield, specification, waste, transport and scale can all influence cost, while the structural and long-term value of stone can be overlooked when it is compared with other materials on a product-by-product basis.

In this final insight, Giulliana Giorgi looks at the true cost of stone, and asks whether changing the way we specify, produce and use indigenous stone could make it a more viable material for contemporary construction.

“One of the perceptions that continues to limit the wider adoption of indigenous stone in contemporary construction is that it is simply too expensive. Concrete, steel and other ubiquitous materials have established markets, standardised products and decades of cost data behind them. Stone, by comparison, can appear unfamiliar and therefore risky.

Yet contemporary projects suggest that the assumption is not so straightforward. In Mallorca, the Balearic Islands Housing Institute (IBAVI) has used locally sourced marès sandstone in social housing, testing the economic and constructive feasibility of local materials. In France, Gilles Perraudin has developed structural stone projects around large blocks and simple construction systems. In the UK, Groupwork’s Clerkenwell Close demonstrated that a load-bearing stone exoskeleton could be more economical than a conventional structure with stone cladding. These projects differ in context, material and procurement, but they raise a common question: is stone inherently expensive or have we developed an expensive way of using it?

During our research, we repeatedly encountered uncertainty around costing stone projects. Contemporary structural stone remains unusual enough that there are relatively few comparable projects from which cost consultants, contractors and clients can build reliable benchmarks. The absence of familiarity can itself become a risk, and risk has an economic value.

There is also a problem with how we compare costs. A stone brick facade cannot simply be measured against a clay fired brick facade by swapping the price of one product for another. Stone can potentially act as both structure and finish, reducing the number of materials, components and trades. Its structural capacity can reduce the need for some secondary elements, while thermal mass may contribute to operational performance depending on the properties of the stone. At the end of a building's life, stone can also retain value through reuse. These factors disappear when we compare individual products rather than the building systems they form part of.

Looking further upstream moreover, revealed that the cost of stone is highly dependent on what we ask the quarry to produce. A large quarry block can be considerably cheaper than a thin, highly finished slab. The difference is not simply the amount of stone, but the processing required. A block may require relatively little intervention before becoming part of a building, whereas a slab can involve repeated cutting, handling, finishing and strict selection. Every cut removes material through the thickness of the blade, while tighter tolerances and demanding visual specifications can result in further rejection. The stone that leaves the quarry is therefore not necessarily the stone that gets used in the building. 

Our fieldwork revealed how significant this relationship between specification and yield can be. The characteristics of each quarry determine what it can efficiently produce, while requirements for colour, dimensions, finish and appearance determine how much of that material is ultimately accepted. Perhaps we need to learn again how to celebrate stone’s natural variability rather than treating it as a defect.

A workshop in Edinburgh with Carles Oliver Barceló offered one possible approach. Working with imperfect ashlar - accepting chipped blocks, iron spotting, variations in colour and dimension, and allowing wider mortar joints - allows more of the material to be used directly, with less selection and processing. The result need not be a compromise. Over time, many so-called imperfections become part of a wall’s character, allowing it to weather and change rather than making every mark appear as a fault.

Perhaps making stone more economical means accepting more of its natural characteristics, rather than pushing a natural material to look and behave like a manufactured one. But changing specification is only part of the equation. Scale matters too.

During our research, we developed a simple costing scenario to ask what might happen if stone production were connected to a much larger and more predictable market. Taking a typical home and assuming approximately 20m³ of stone - around 12,000 bricks - a programme of 300,000 homes, a fifth of the Government's 1.5 million-home target, would generate demand for approximately 3.6 billion bricks. Under existing production arrangements, meeting this demand would be difficult. But if several quarries could dedicate capacity to producing a repeatable component, supported by guaranteed supply contracts, the economics begin to change. Under such a dedicated production model, our scenario suggests that a stone brick could potentially be produced for around £1 per unit. 

The £1 figure is, rather than a market price, a thought experiment developed with UK quarry producers, exploring what might become possible when design, production and procurement are considered together. And more importantly it suggests that scale could provide something the stone industry currently lacks: the certainty of demand needed to invest in production capacity, machinery and skills.

This is already beginning to happen in different ways. From IBAVI's use of local marès in social housing, to Barrault Pressacco's Parisian housing, to Archiplein and Perraudin's large-scale stone housing in Geneva, architects and clients are demonstrating that stone can be structural, economical and contemporary. Archiplein's work in Hermance goes further, experimenting with limited local quarry resources and developing construction methods around the material that is actually available.

Perhaps this is where the real opportunity lies. We do not need to wait for stone to become a mainstream construction material before we begin designing differently with it. The leading projects are already here. What is needed now is to connect them: the quarries with the architects, the projects with the demand, and the material with the places from which it comes.

The future of stone is not simply about making it cheaper. It is about making better use of what we already have and recognising that the next generation of architecture can be built not against the particularities of its natural materials, but precisely because of them we might be able to create a more humane and integrated build environment.”

As we previously explored, Mosley Thorold’s approach to craftsmanship is rooted in an understanding of how materials are made and how they perform in use. At De Beauvoir Townhouse in London, that thinking is applied across the renovation of a Victorian home, where reclaimed materials, bespoke fabrication and carefully controlled interventions establish a stronger relationship between the existing building and contemporary living.

The 2,900 sq ft house had previously developed into a series of disconnected spaces, with a poorly positioned staircase particularly disrupting circulation at the entrance. Working with the client from before the property was acquired, Mosley Thorold first addressed the plan, opening up the ground floor by removing an obstructive study and repositioning the stair within its footprint. The resulting void brings daylight into one of the darker parts of the house, while the new staircase establishes a visual route from the entrance hall towards the garden.

The intervention continues below ground, where the kitchen, dining area, and reading nook were lowered by 600mm, increasing ceiling height and improving the relationship between the spaces and the garden. Wide glazed doors connect the lowered patio to the interior, while the kitchen has become the social centre of the house. A bespoke dining table, designed by Mosley Thorold with the client, was conceived as an object that would ‘offer an embrace’ to guests.

Material selection reinforces the project’s balance of old and new. Reclaimed 17th-century Italian shutters have been reworked as kitchen doors, alongside 19th-century reclaimed cement tiles and hand-selected reclaimed bricks. Reclaimed timber is also used for the principal bedroom’s bespoke vanity. Rather than treating these elements as decorative references to the building’s age, the practice uses them to introduce texture, variation and evidence of previous use.

Stone forms part of this material palette through the work of specialist suppliers and fabricators, including Marble Collective and Livra, with an expert stonemason among the craftspeople involved. The same attention to making is evident in the boardmarked concrete used on the external kitchen facades. Timber boards were selected and sandblasted to expose their grain before being used as formwork, transferring the texture and relief into the concrete surface. The concrete was cast in a single pour without junctions, requiring bespoke formwork and a steel column system capable of resisting the pressure without relying on the existing party wall.

This technical approach reflects the wider philosophy discussed by Nathaniel Mosley and Henry Thorold in our recent Insights feature: material character is considered alongside the practical processes required to realise it. At De Beauvoir, the result is not a historicist treatment of the Victorian fabric but a contemporary interior in which making, reuse and technical precision are closely connected.

Light is another material in the composition, with a double-height sash window, top-lit corridor and skylights creating a sequence of changing conditions through the house, while the triple-height hallway links the floors visually. The garden extends this sense of retreat, with landscape designer Sophie Gordon introducing an English garden and natural swimming pool, complemented by a sauna and outdoor changing room clad in rough quarried stone.

For Nathaniel Mosley, the connection between Victorian craftsmanship and contemporary practice is direct: “Victorian buildings were crafted by hand and celebrated what materials could do. And it is the same with contemporary design. It’s about emulating the craft-led approach of that era using the tools we have at our disposal.”

De Beauvoir Townhouse demonstrates that principle through its combination of reclaimed fabric, specialist workmanship and technically demanding new interventions, producing a home where material character is integral to both its atmosphere and its construction.

 Images: Ollie Tomlinson

Stone becomes structure rather than mass in Architectural Fragments, a series of Thassos marble pieces by Athens-based ARP – Architecture Research Practice that explores how far a solid material can be reduced while retaining its architectural presence.

Developed by ARP principal architect Argyro Pouliovali, the collection translates architectural thinking and construction logic into objects that sit between furniture and architecture. Each fragment is carved from a fixed thickness of solid Thassos marble, selected for its density and luminosity, and paired with precise stainless-steel supports.

Rather than treating the marble as a block to be shaped into a conventional object, ARP approaches it through subtraction. Material is selectively removed under constraint, with the amount taken away calibrated against what remains. The resulting pieces are defined by permeability, with the marble becoming a surface that extends into space rather than a solid mass occupying it.

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Light is an active part of this process. The relationship between the remaining stone, its surface and the space around it changes as light passes through and across the fragments, contributing to their perceived lightness. The density of the Thassos marble is therefore balanced against an architectural quality of openness. 

The approach reflects ARP’s wider practice, which works across residential, hospitality and cultural architecture while developing research through objects and installations. Based in Athens, the studio was founded by Pouliovali in 2014 and works across different scales, using material, structure, proportion and light as tools for developing architectural ideas

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Architectural Fragments extends that investigation into the relationship between making, use and experience. Although the pieces can function as furniture, they are not conceived simply as individual objects. Each is described as a fragment of a larger spatial system, allowing stone to be encountered in terms of structure and space as much as surface.

The fabrication by Delta Marbles S.A. is integral to that proposition. Working from a fixed marble thickness requires the removal of material to be carefully controlled, preserving the balance between structural integrity and the voids that give the pieces their character. The result is deliberately restrained, with stainless steel providing the necessary support while allowing the marble to remain visually dominant, its pale surface and luminosity brought into focus by the spaces carved from it.

Architectural Fragments continues ARP’s interest in material intelligence at object scale, using stone not simply for its inherent solidity but by testing what happens when that solidity is systematically reduced. The resulting pieces occupy an intermediate territory: part furniture, part architectural fragment, and part study of how stone, structure and light can define space.

Women in Natural Stone (WINS) is bringing together five specialists from across the natural stone sector for an online CPD session examining what happens between the first idea for a stone project and its completion.

Lisa Nunn

Journey of Stone: Concept to Completion takes place on Wednesday 16 September from 14:30 to 16:00 and will follow a hypothetical project through the different stages of natural stone specification, from initial material selection and quarrying through supply, technical consultation, contracting and installation.

The session will feature WINS members Carolina Saboya De Toledo, Ellie Batchelor, Lisa Nunn, Tamsin Pickeral and architect Giulliana Giorgi, with each contributing from their area of specialist knowledge. Together, the speakers will look at the different roles involved in bringing a stone specification into reality, and the points at which collaboration between them can influence the outcome.

Carolina Saboya De Toledo

Rather than focusing solely on the finished material, the discussion will consider the wider process behind its use. For architects and designers, that includes understanding how a stone is selected and sourced; further along the chain, it means considering quarrying, fabrication, technical requirements, procurement and installation. The format is intended to give attendees a clearer picture of how these stages connect.

Ellie Batchelor

The event continues WINS’ programme of activity aimed at increasing knowledge and connections across the natural stone industry, following previous WINS events covered by Stone Specialist. It also sits alongside a wider discussion on stone specification and supply currently running through the site, including Giulliana Giorgi’s ongoing Unlocking UK Stones research, which is examining the potential for greater use of indigenous stone and the regional infrastructure needed to support it.

The CPD will be informal and discussion-led, with a wider Q&A at the end providing an opportunity for attendees to put questions to the speakers.

Journey of Stone: Concept to Completion takes place online on Wednesday 16 September, from 14:30 to 16:00. Places can be secured by emailing wins@stonefed.org.uk.

What can material mapping tell us about the next generation of new towns?

As the UK looks once again to large-scale new town development, the relationship between construction and the resources already present in the landscape becomes increasingly relevant. The third insight from architect Giulliana Giorgi’s Unlocking UK Stones research considers this relationship through a simple but revealing exercise: mapping proposed new town locations against the country’s active dimension-stone quarries. Following the first two pieces in this series, it shifts the focus from the stone itself to the infrastructure and regional capacity that could support its use. The results suggest that indigenous stone could have a more considered role in future development – provided material resources, quarrying expertise and supply chains are brought into the planning conversation early enough.

“Britain is preparing to build new towns again. At a time when the country faces both a housing shortage and the urgent need to reduce the environmental impact of construction, building at this scale presents an opportunity to consider these challenges together. As we plan where people will live, are we also asking what those places could be built from?

The Government's New Towns Programme currently proposes seven locations across England, narrowed from the twelve recommended by the New Towns Taskforce, with a combined total of roughly 190,000 homes expected over the coming years. The programme is also intended to support economic growth, supply-chain development and innovation, creating the conditions for investment in skills, infrastructure and new construction methods.

As part of our research into the potential of indigenous stone construction in the UK, we mapped the initial 12 proposed new town locations (New Towns Taskforce, September 2025) against Britain's active dimension-stone quarries, ahead of the shortlist being narrowed to seven in March 2026. Most of the proposed locations sit within 20-40 km of active quarries.

This proximity opens a conversation. It doesn't tell us which quarries could scale to serve tens of thousands of homes, or what kind of stone each could supply. What it does is make visible a relationship between where we plan to build and what already exists in the landscape around it, one that hasn't been part of the conversation so far. The map is therefore a starting point for better questions.

Minerals are not absent from the planning system. Mineral Planning Authorities already have responsibility for planning mineral extraction and safeguarding resources, and local planning authorities must have regard to mineral plans when allocating land for other development. The Strategic Environmental Assessment published alongside the New Towns consultation also considers geology, soils, materials and waste. But safeguarding a resource and planning with it are different things.

The next step is planning with these resources, not just protecting them. A quarry is more than a geological deposit: it represents skills, machinery, processing capacity and supply-chain knowledge embedded within a region. Considered alongside housing, transport, ecology and infrastructure, that capacity becomes part of a place's identity and potential.

This sits within the Government's wider industrial strategy, where construction is named a foundational industry underpinning the UK's priority growth sectors. Indigenous dimension stone isn't a strategic sector in its own right, but its place in that supply chain gives regional material industries a reason to have a seat at the table.

The New Towns Programme is a powerful test case. Development corporations are being set up to coordinate land, infrastructure and investment over the long term, across sites built out over many years. That's the kind of sustained, visible demand that could give regional quarries the confidence to invest in capacity and shared facilities, signalled early enough to plan against.

This was one of the questions explored during Conversations Mining, an event we organised at 1 Poultry as part of the research. Discussions considered whether quarries within the same region could work more collaboratively, sharing cutting or processing facilities, pooling knowledge, and responding collectively to projects larger than any one could take on alone. That coordination is where the opportunity sits: building the regional capacity that could let more quarries supply a new town, together.

For local authorities and development corporations, material mapping could become a genuine planning tool, overlaying quarries and other productive landscapes against future housing, infrastructure and transport to reveal where regional collaboration and early procurement signals would have the most impact. For architects, it suggests material mapping belongs in site analysis, not at the end of the design stage in the specification process.

This map is a first exercise - proof that proximity exists at a scale worth taking into consideration at a strategic level, and an invitation to the research that should follow: into capacity, investment incentives, and the regional collaboration that could turn nearby stone into a building block for how these places grow.”

The full research is available at: ukstones.co.uk

As we mark the one-year anniversary of our Surface Perspectives series, we’re bringing together some of the themes that have emerged across the conversations to look more closely at the specification and use of stone.

Over the past year, we’ve spoken to people across the stone and surfaces industry, from quarry operators, architects and designers to fabricators, stonemasons, conservators, suppliers and specialists in restoration and aftercare. Their perspectives have highlighted recurring questions around material knowledge, performance, sustainability, skills and long-term value.

For the first of three round-up articles, we look at what good specification actually requires,  and why it needs to go beyond choosing a material that simply looks right.

Stone is rarely short of visual appeal. The harder question is whether the material is being understood well enough before it is specified. One theme that comes through repeatedly relates to better specification, which depends on moving beyond the sample and considering how a material will perform, how it will be fabricated and installed, how it will be maintained, along with what its value will be over time.

Lundhs HQ

For Ben Ayling of Lundhs, education is central to that process. His role involves helping architects, designers and fabricators understand how natural stone can address both practical and aesthetic requirements, translating technical information from the quarry into guidance for project teams. “Good decisions rely on people understanding a material, its performance, and its purpose,” he says.

Ca' Pietra

That distinction between appearance and performance is particularly relevant as the range of stone and surface materials available to designers continues to expand. Holly Kerslake of Ca’ Pietra describes a working day that involves “moodboarding samples, discussing stone vs porcelain, and chatting about trends”, but stresses that visual appeal cannot be separated from application. “It’s vital to consider how spaces will be used and not just get lost in the aesthetics.”

Faye Newman

Faye Newman makes a similar point from the design side, identifying education around material choices as one of the industry's main challenges. Designers and clients need to understand not only what a stone looks like but whether it suits the way a space will be used. She points to misconceptions about granite, including the assumption that all natural granite is highly porous, while knowledge of different finishes and technical characteristics remains uneven.

The Surface Collection

The problem is compounded when specification is driven primarily by price. Ross Williamson of The Surface Collection, working across stone and hard surfaces, identifies “rising costs, supply chain pressures, labour shortages, and increasing competition” as current pressures, but also highlights education as a challenge: customers need to understand “the real differences between materials and the long-term value of investing in quality surfaces rather than making decisions based purely on price.”

That long-term view can be difficult when surfaces are selected towards the end of a project, after other costs have accumulated. Newman notes that kitchen surfaces are often specified late, when renovation budgets are already under pressure. This can make the cheapest quotation appear attractive, even though installation quality and material suitability can have a much greater effect on the eventual outcome.

Ca' Pietra

Specification, then, is not simply the selection of a slab. It is also a process of communication.

Williamson describes regularly working with fabricators, designers, architects and developers on “technical performance, aesthetics, installation requirements, and long-term durability”. The role is partly about product knowledge, but also about listening. “Understanding what a customer really needs often leads to better long-term partnerships than simply focusing on the immediate sale.”

Athena Stonecare

That knowledge needs to extend beyond the point of purchase. Becca Cranfield of Athena Stonecare sees a related problem at the aftercare stage. Her company encounters homeowners who have installed stone without being given adequate information about cleaning and maintenance. The resulting problems can reinforce the misconception that stone is difficult to live with.

Her response has been to develop an aftercare guide distributed through stone suppliers. “It can benefit the entire industry if we make sure that anyone using stone can do so with the right knowledge and fall in love with the material,” she says.

Cliveden Conservation

There is an important connection here between specification and longevity. A material that is technically appropriate but badly installed or maintained can fail to deliver the service life expected of it. Conversely, good information can allow a surface to remain in use rather than being replaced unnecessarily.

For Tom Flemons of Cliveden Conservation, material knowledge goes deeper still. His work involves identifying materials in historic buildings and sourcing like-for-like stone for repairs. His background as a mason and conservator means understanding the material is inseparable from understanding the building. The stone used in a repair has to relate to the project, its location and the existing construction.

This is one reason the industry's knowledge base matters. Flemons identifies the reduction in practical education as a serious problem, while Lincoln Cathedral mason Rachael Wragg points to the diminishing number of young people entering heritage crafts. Her experience demonstrates how much understanding is acquired through direct contact with the material. “Time spent on the tools, gaining that experience is invaluable in this craft.”

The message across these interviews is therefore less about choosing natural stone over other surfaces than about making better-informed decisions. Ross Williamson acknowledges the different strengths of natural and engineered materials: natural stone brings individuality, while quartz and porcelain can provide consistency, technical performance and design flexibility.

The important point is to understand those differences rather than treating materials as interchangeable images on a moodboard.

For Ayling, that means clearer communication and better data. For Kerslake, it means matching material to use, while for Newman, it means educating clients. For Cranfield, it means explaining care, while for Flemons and Wragg, it means maintaining practical knowledge. Taken together, the perspectives suggest that good specification is less about having more choice than having enough knowledge to make the choice meaningful.

Stone may begin with appearance, but specification should not end there.