Architectural stone elements

... The examples in this book however let us project beyond those standard practices and common processes, and make the argument that there is a generation of younger architects that not only fully understand the potential of digital fabrication, but attempt to go deeper into the question of materiality, inscribing new forms into stone thus penetrating material with profound thought.

... Successively, the merit of each design lies in the ingenuity to develop a customized methodology, which joins cut stone blocks in an additive way such that the assembly of individual units increases the overall structural stability by exploiting material strength through compression, typically known as stereotomic aggregates.

... It is in this respect that the designer Giuseppe Fallacara succeeds to devise methods that permit him to investigate a trajectory with each project, installation or prototype, and which open up new avenues in design by bringing stone to the edge of performance failure and exploit deliberately many current technologies. The projects are therefore also a great didactic example of advanced methods in architectural design with stone, which again shows the larger picture of architecture that is in continuous evolution enriched by the new means of digitization but more than ever affords a life-long apprenticeship instilled by passion.

Christian R Pongratz