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Culture is a reinvention of nature. Humans have evolved into a creative species, transforming what we find in nature to build our own social ecosystems, and stones have been essential for this process. The construction of human habitats, from hamlets to metropoles, has been done with stones for millennia, and building or carving in stone has become synonymous with creating something that endures the passing of time. Choosing natural stones for an architectural concept means connecting with this legacy, placing the project in a historical continuity that extends to the very first dwellings ever built and lays the foundations for future cities.
Doma takes part in this story, working to provide sustainable stones of the best quality for creators worldwide. Whenever an architect comes to us looking for the perfect natural stone to match their idea, we make sure that we grasp the concept and suggest the pieces of our stone library that could materialize their vision. This is a crucial moment of the creative process, for the material establishes the substance of the building’s atmosphere; it is the base of its look and feel.
Like most things in human culture, the trends of natural stone usage have evolved over the ages depending on several factors. They may be shaped by supply and demand, geopolitical turmoils, aesthetic inclinations, or historical contingencies. The boom of Carrara marble, for example, is due to Michelangelo’s fascination with it, and the material became so popular you can now spot it on the floor of the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. This is another thing about trends in natural stone: like other kinds of fashion, they follow cycles and tend to come back, slightly transformed, after a certain period. So, we often take inspiration from other projects, old or new, that we believe can serve as models for a particular aspect of the architect’s vision.
As natural stones are not industrially produced, it is impossible to replicate a design. Every quarry produces stones with unique configurations of colors, visual textures, and patterns. This allows for a virtually infinite set of possibilities for playing with the bookmatch, which is the name given to the designs made with natural stones. When we collaborate with architects and designers, the aesthetic characteristics of tones constitute one of the most essential elements for selecting the material that will form the project.
Besides the visual and atmospheric potential of stones, every artist needs to consider their geological qualities. Different stones have different physical properties, which make them more or less appropriate for a given project. For example, sandstones are very porous, so they are ideal for outdoor or poolside flooring. Nevertheless, this same porosity makes them unfit for indoor flooring. Marble, for instance, its endurance and beauty make it an all-time favorite for high-end housing, but its high cost and low resistance to chemicals make it inadequate for industrial buildings.
Once the perfect stone is selected, it follows a complex journey from the quarry to its final place in the architectural project. We first travel to the quarry, which can be on any continent, to extract the stone. We then measure it, cut it, finish it and ship it to its destination, where the architects and workers proceed to install it. The process implies a convergence of nature, technology, and art, combining industrial procedures to transform natural materials for aesthetic purposes.
Natural stones have a language of their own, a silent music that contributes to the shaping and materializing of the architectural concept. Different stones have different speech styles and serve diverse purposes, and learning to understand this language is an essential part of the art of building and appreciating human habitats. Selecting the proper stone is the first step of a journey, defining not only the functionality of the work but also much of what the final atmosphere will feel like.
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