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In this Stone Age 2.0 interview, ACAN Natural Materials Group Coordinator Aurore Baulier calls on architects to embrace the natural qualities of stone and reintroduce this material into their toolbox.
“Obviously you can shape concrete into all these fancy forms, but if you’re smart with the stone you can do incredible things,” Ballier told Dezeen.
“Stone can be used as a foundation or as a superstructure,” she continued. “The beams can actually be stone rather than steel, minimizing their carbon footprint.”
“It’s okay to use stone instead of traditional materials – or traditional materials now.”
Baulier, director of London studio Atelier Baulier, spoke to Dezeen as part of the Stone Age 2.0 series, which is exploring the material’s potential as a modern building material.
She advocates for the use of structural stone as part of the Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN) and coordinates the Natural Materials Group.
The organization is calling for an industry-wide shift to natural building materials such as stone to help minimize the industry’s carbon footprint and wider environmental impact.
Baulier said using stone in construction has similar benefits to wood, another biomaterial that is experiencing a renaissance as a structural material.
Use the power of stones
Unlike most building materials, one of the main advantages of stone is that it can be used in construction in its natural state. It can also be repurposed or simply returned to the ground when the building’s useful life is over.
“You just dig the bed and then slice or cut the stone into the pieces you need,” Bowlier explains.
“If you no longer need the stone, it goes back to Earth, and that’s it,” she continued. “If it’s done in a responsible way, then it can be returned as part of nature.”
Another advantage of stone is its naturally high compressive strength. Combined with its resistance to moisture, this ensures its durability as a building material and its potential to “age gracefully” – as the enduring Roman ruins attest.
To illustrate this point, Bowlier highlighted the energy-intensive process of making concrete, which requires stone, fresh water and sand.
“To make concrete, you take a stone like Portland stone, which has a compressive strength of about 200 newtons per square millimeter, and then you crush it, you burn it, you do all these really energy-consuming processes, and you end up with every square millimeter. About 40 newtons of material,” explains Baulier.
The material is “about 20% as strong as stone” – a fact that Powerier describes as “crazy”.
The stone ‘lost its purpose’
Baulier attributes the absence of structural stone in today’s industry to a lack of awareness of structural stone—an issue she battles in her own work as an architect.
“I can’t specify stone as a structural material myself yet, but it’s definitely something I’ve been working on,” she said.
“You need the right team, then you need a structural engineer, then you need a client, then you need a builder. It’s a complete team. It takes time.”
She explains that this lack of awareness has also led to the misconception that stone is an expensive building material—a myth reinforced by the ways in which stone is most commonly used today.
“What’s really interesting is that stone is seen as a very expensive material because in the last 70 or 100 years it’s no longer a load-bearing material but is used as a cladding on buildings,” she said .
Additionally, it is often manufactured to “eliminate any alleged defects,” driving up the cost.
“If you use everything and embrace imperfection, it becomes a very cost-effective material,” she explains.
“It just lost its purpose, it wasn’t decorative,” she explained. “It’s a very diverse material and very strong, so it should do what it’s supposed to do.”
“Also, using all available stones is more sustainable than selecting and discarding.”
To help raise awareness of stone’s value beyond decoration, Baulier and ACAN’s Natural Materials Group collaborated with experts in the material to create a video. This is part of a wider ACAN-led film series in which experts share insights into natural materials.
Meanwhile, the team is developing a booklet containing “typical building details” for more specific natural materials such as stone, aiming to “give architects, builders and homeowners the confidence to use them”.
“As we see more and more stone and natural materials, I think people are going to become more interested, more excited, and more confident. So it’s all about awareness,” said Bollier.
“[Stone] Suitable for all sizes,” she continued. “People have been building little stone sheds and giant stone houses all over the world, and I think it’s a very versatile material.”
“Why don’t we use stone beams instead of steel beams? It’s an incredible feature.”
Using stone in mixed structures ‘more sustainable’
One form of stone construction promoted by Baulier was the stone “brick”. She believes these could be used to replace regular clay bricks, which require a more energy-intensive manufacturing process.
“Some quarries have started developing bricks that are actually clay brick-sized stone bricks, so it’s a very easy transition for people to actually move away from clay, which requires a lot of processing and fire, and It’s energy-intensive,” she explained.
“Obviously, there’s still the issue with mortar, which in most cases is cement because it dries faster, but if everyone switched from clay bricks to stone bricks, it would be a really good way to start reducing carbon emissions in the built environment. .”
However, for her, the most exciting and resourceful way to reintroduce stone into the toolkit of contemporary architects and builders is with timber as a hybrid structure.
“We need to build in the world, but we have to make sure we don’t use too much material,” explains Bollier.
“Just because you can build a solid wall out of stone doesn’t mean you should,” Ballier added. “A better combination would be to start actually using mixed structures of wood and stone.”
For example, she says lightweight timber structures can be combined with stone foundations and flagstones. Baulier says this is one of the most sustainable ways to use stone and reflects what she believes is the right approach to sustainable architecture—using mixed materials in moderation to take advantage of their unique strengths.
“We could develop a new language, a new dialect,” Paulier reflects. “If we do some mixing, then we can become more sustainable and have a more resilient structure because we leverage the properties of both. [timber and stone],” Bollier explained.
“I think there’s a new language being invented there. I think that’s really exciting.”
Bowlier’s portrait was created by Jim Stephenson.
Stone 2.0
This article is part of Dezeen’s Stone Age 2.0 series, which explores the potential of stone as a viable, low-carbon, modern structural material.
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