For conservation architect Deniz Beck, the material traces left behind by a historic building can be as significant as the building itself. Her Shape of Memory project takes fragments from Fort Gilkicker in Gosport, Hampshire, and uses them as the starting point for a contemporary lighting piece that retains something of the site’s physical and material history.

The project grew from Stories You Can Hold, a one-year research and development project exploring how heritage sites, artists and makers can collaborate to create site-specific objects. Beck, working with artists Sally Tyrie and Pippa Charlesworth and metalsmith Craig Palmer of Spin 360, developed Gilkicker Light No.01 from the materials and geometry of the Victorian fort.

Rather than treating fragments generated through conservation and construction as waste, the team collected stone shavings, handmade iron nails, metal fragments, burnt timber, green paint and other debris. Their value lies partly in what they reveal: evidence of labour, use, decay, repair and loss embedded in the physical fabric of the site.

That approach reflects Beck’s wider conservation practice, which is rooted in close observation of existing buildings and their accumulated marks, alterations and repairs. Her interest is not simply in preserving historic fabric as a fixed object, but in understanding buildings as places shaped by memory, use and reinvention.

For the light, Beck’s LiDAR scans of Fort Gilkicker provided another form of material record. Their fragmented, incomplete quality became a reference for Tyrie, who developed designs around the fort’s geometry, openings, walls and shifting relationship between light and shadow. The eventual light fitting translates those observations into a functional object rather than attempting to reproduce the building literally.

Palmer developed the prototype through experiments with brass, etching and fire-marking. The finished brass surface is altered and coloured through heat, creating a direct material connection with the burnt timber found at the fort. Heat, accident and transformation therefore become part of the surface rather than simply ideas informing its form.

The resulting object demonstrates how conservation can generate new material possibilities without stripping away the evidence of a building’s past. The fragments are not used decoratively as historic tokens; instead, they inform the design language, material palette and making process.

“I hope it encourages visitors to see materials not simply as physical objects, but as carriers of history, care and possibility,” says Beck.

More than £500,000 of bespoke wet cast stone has been supplied by Taylor Maxwell for the restoration of the historic Italian Terraces at Crystal Palace Park in south London.

The Grade II-listed terraces form part of a recently completed phase of the park’s wider regeneration, co-delivered by Bromley Council and Crystal Palace Park Trust with support from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The project, led by HTA Design as lead consultant and landscape architect, has also included the restoration of the park’s Grade I-listed Victorian dinosaur sculptures and Geological Court, alongside a new visitor centre, dinosaur-themed playground, improved paths and lighting, and new step-free routes.

The Italian Terraces occupy the site of Crystal Palace following its relocation from Hyde Park after the Great Exhibition of 1851. For the restoration, Taylor Maxwell was approached by main contractor Maylim in May 2025 to identify a stone capable of accurately reproducing the profiles of the existing masonry.

Working with manufacturing partner Vobster Architectural, Taylor Maxwell selected Wet Cast Bathstone with a Light Etch finish. The bespoke stone package included copings, pier caps, balustrades, bottles and closed panels, with early site meetings allowing samples to be assessed against the existing masonry.

“It was a privilege to be involved with such a historic site, which will leave a lasting legacy for the public,” says Alan Gordon of Taylor Maxwell’s Specification Team. “The combination of teamwork, technical expertise and a strong partnership between all involved was what made the project a success. The finished stonework has brought new life to the terraces while remaining true to their historic character.”

The work forms part of a broader programme intended to restore the historic landscape and improve access and visitor facilities across the Grade II-listed park. Tate + Co acted as architect for the new-build elements, with Donald Insall Associates appointed as specialist heritage architect.

The project demonstrates the role of bespoke stone manufacture in conservation work, where new elements need to replicate existing profiles, finishes and proportions while meeting the practical requirements of contemporary construction.

A Georgian townhouse in Edinburgh’s Newhaven has been extended and reconfigured by Pend, using a carefully judged combination of new brickwork, existing stone and a series of curved interventions to resolve a difficult relationship between the house and its garden.

Set back from the water’s edge in the Harbour Conservation Area, the three-storey property occupies the end of a terrace and is distinguished by its bowed stone gable. Its position gives the house an unusual character, but the sloping site had left the lower ground floor partially submerged and short of natural light. At the rear, a tired conservatory and failing shed further separated the house from the garden.

The brief from clients Ali and Brian was relatively straightforward: bring more light into the house, improve the connection to the garden and create a family space that could accommodate everyday life. Pend’s response was to look closely at what was already there, using the building’s existing geometry and material language as the starting point rather than introducing an unrelated architectural gesture.

The old conservatory and shed have been replaced by a single new volume containing a small porch, flexible utility and office space, and a new living area connected to the existing kitchen. The intervention also addresses the awkward levels of the site. From the entrance, a new sightline runs through the house towards the garden, replacing the previous sequence of narrow corridors and utility spaces with a clearer connection between arrival, living space and landscape.

Light is brought further into the plan through a circular rooflight, whose form echoes the curved stone gable of the original house. A circular window repeats the geometry in the new office, while the stepped profile of the extension allows eastern and southern light to reach the workspace.

The curves are therefore less a decorative flourish than a way of establishing continuity between old and new. They pick up on something already distinctive within the building, allowing the extension to develop its own identity without losing its connection to the Georgian house.

Materially, the new facade takes a similarly contextual approach. Long-format Roman Red Water-Struck brick was selected to sit alongside the existing stone gable and to continue the language of infill brickwork already visible in the boundary wall along the street. The extended brickwork is carried into the landscape, where the clients chose to use it as a border detail within the new paving, allowing the character and unusually long proportions of the brick to remain visible from inside the house.

Pend describes the setting as “city coastal”, with its mixture of industrial and maritime character. The restrained material palette responds to that context without attempting to reproduce a conventional seaside aesthetic. Instead, the new brick provides a contemporary layer alongside the weathered stone, while the curved geometry quietly ties the extension back to the original building.

The landscape was designed as part of the same intervention, with a new winding path that negotiates the change in levels and creates a more direct route from the rear entrance, dividing the garden into distinct areas and introducing a dedicated terrace.  As a result, what was previously an awkward edge to the house has become a more legible transition between architecture and garden.

Founded in Edinburgh in 2021, Pend works across bespoke residential projects including extensions, one-off houses and work within historic, urban and rural settings. Its approach places material knowledge alongside close attention to existing buildings and their context. The Newhaven project is a useful example of that methodology: rather than treating the extension as a separate object, the practice has used the stone, brick, geometry and levels of the existing property to establish a new relationship between the house and the garden.

As project architect Joanna Hobbs explains: “Improving light and flow led the brief, with each move being considered within the unique characteristics, with curves and textures being introduced intuitively as we spent more time immersed in the building’s history.”

At Newhaven, the result is an extension that feels less like an addition and more like a considered continuation of the house’s material and architectural story.

Specialist conservation works are underway at Grade I listed Cragside House in Rothbury, where North Shields-based Classic Masonry has been appointed to conserve the property's historic chimney stacks.

The work forms part of a wider refurbishment of the house roof being delivered by principal contractor Datim Building Contractors for the National Trust. The programme includes renewal of roof coverings, associated leadwork and rainwater goods, with Classic Masonry responsible for specialist masonry conservation to the multiple historic chimney stacks.

Cragside was created by industrialist and inventor William Armstrong and his wife, Margaret Armstrong, and is noted for being the first house in the world to be lit using hydroelectricity. Its Victorian fabric makes careful conservation particularly important, with the work requiring materials and techniques appropriate to the Grade I listed building.

Classic Masonry has worked on a number of significant North East heritage buildings over its 35-year history, and the significance of the historical site is not lost on the team behind the work.

"Cragside is one of Britain's most significant Victorian country houses and projects of this nature demand the very highest standards of heritage craftsmanship," says Mike Moody, managing director of Classic Masonry.

Their package for the site is typically thorough and includes specialist stone cleaning, repointing, stone indenting, and flue repairs. Before work began, the project team developed a series of trial panels to establish appropriate natural hydraulic lime mortar mixes, using carefully selected sands and mortar ratios. As Moody explains, “Traditional materials and techniques are essential to ensuring the building's historic character is preserved while providing durable repairs for the future." The mixes were then submitted for approval to ensure that repairs remain sympathetic to the original masonry. 

The project highlights the importance of conservation work in extending the life of historic masonry. Stone can survive for centuries, but as we’ve recently highlighted, its continued performance depends on appropriate maintenance, compatible repair materials and skilled intervention. On listed buildings, seemingly small decisions about mortar, stone replacement and detailing can have a lasting effect on the historic fabric.

In Harrow on the Hill, Inglis Badrashi Loddo (IBLA) has converted a Grade II listed former council building into five apartments, using the existing fabric as the starting point for a careful programme of repair, removal and new intervention.

Designed by Harry Prince, a pupil of Arts & Crafts architect E S Prior, the building was completed in 1913 as the council chambers for Harrow on the Hill Urban District Council. Occupying a prominent position beside the village green, it was converted to offices and a caretaker's flat in the 1960s before further alterations in the 1980s disrupted its original plan. IBLA was appointed by the building's longstanding owners in 2020, securing listed building and planning consent for the residential conversion in 2021.

The project was shaped by three competing requirements: creating functional homes, making effective use of the building and respecting its listed status. Rather than attempting to conceal the interventions of different periods, IBLA began by studying the existing fabric alongside historic photographs and drawings, identifying where later additions could be removed to recover the building's original organisation.

The most significant change was the reinstatement of the central lightwell, which had been filled in with toilets, a staircase and additional accommodation. Reopening it restores daylight to the centre of the building and re-establishes the original courtyard as an organising element.

A new timber-clad spiral staircase provides access to the rear apartments from Byron Hill Road, allowing the original main staircase and frontage to be retained for the principal duplex. The new stair is constructed around precast concrete treads, with its curved timber enclosure engineered to use the stair itself for stability. Thermally treated pine is secret-fixed in narrow, offset boards that follow the curve, creating a deliberately contemporary intervention against the existing masonry.

Material continuity also informed the interiors; for instance, in the principal duplex, original timber panelling was sanded, re-oiled and fire-protected, while existing doors were retained. Elsewhere, the main staircase and hallway were restored by removing glued-down carpet, later fire doors and blocked windows, while original oak parquet flooring and cornicing remain in place.

New services and amenities are concentrated in freestanding timber-clad pods, treated more like pieces of furniture than conventional partitions. Positioned below the level of the original picture rails and cornicing, they contain bathrooms and storage while limiting intervention into the historic walls. Blue-grey herringbone tiling echoes the pine parquet, while brushed brass taps and ironmongery pick up on original door furniture.

The approach extends to the exterior, where non-original openings were removed and the facades restored to their original composition of red brick, stone quoining and clay tiles beneath the copper-domed cupola. Insulation and secondary glazing were added where possible, with new services carefully routed through the existing fabric.

For IBLA director Kim Loddo, the project was ultimately about understanding the building before deciding how to change it. "The challenge wasn't simply converting an old office building into apartments - it was understanding how the building originally worked and allowing that logic to shape the new design."

At Harrow on the Hill, conservation is therefore less about preserving the building as a fixed historical object than retaining its material character while allowing it to accommodate a new use. The reopened courtyard, restored masonry and timber interiors sit alongside new elements that are clearly of their time, creating a residential scheme in which repair and adaptation remain visible parts of the building's continuing history.

All images: © Brotherton Lock

The Stone Collective is to host a talk with architect Carl Fredrik Svenstedt exploring how stone could be used to rethink one of the most energy-intensive forms of contemporary infrastructure: the data centre.

The event will focus on Svenstedt's Stone Clouds concept for Evroc, a series of data centres designed around structural stone and adapted to their local climate and material resources. The first project is planned near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, where a 4,000m² facility will use standardised structural Swedish granite panels.

The scheme challenges the familiar concrete-box approach to data centre design, using the mass of stone as part of the building's environmental and structural strategy. The proposed Swedish facility comprises a triangular base supporting two oval towers, with the granite walls providing thermal inertia as well as security and structural stability.

The wider Stone Clouds concept is intended to adapt to different European conditions. In northern Europe, granite and hydroelectric power form part of the strategy; elsewhere, the proposal considers limestone and solar power or rammed earth and wind energy. The buildings are also conceived to accommodate change, with the potential to be converted from data centres to offices, housing or cultural uses in the future.

The discussion is a natural extension of The Stone Collective's work since its formation in 2024. The cross-industry initiative brings together quarry operators, stonemasons, architects and engineers to promote the use of stone in contemporary construction, with its activities spanning research, education, events and a growing series of publications on structural stone.

Stone Clouds takes that conversation into the digital infrastructure sector, asking what happens when a material associated with ancient construction is reconsidered for buildings at the centre of contemporary technology.

The talk will take place in London, with an opportunity for informal drinks and networking afterwards.

The Stone Collective: Carl Fredrik Svenstedt, Stone Clouds

Market Building, 72-82 Rosebery Ave, London, EC1R 4RW

7th October 6-8pm

Further details and tickets: Eventbrite

As we round up the one-year celebration of our Surface Perspectives series, sustainability has been a recurring subject across the interviews. But the conversations have rarely reduced the issue to environmental credentials or a single carbon figure. Instead, they point towards a broader question: what decisions allow stone to be used responsibly, from extraction and transport through to processing, specification and eventual reuse?

For Ben Ayling of Lundhs, that starts with resisting the idea of sustainability as a label. “For me, sustainability is not a badge but a set of decisions around source, transport, lifespan, and performance,” he says.

That approach puts the material itself back at the centre of the discussion. Where a stone comes from, how much processing it requires and how far it travels can all influence its impact, as can the way it is specified and the amount of material that becomes waste. The comparison therefore needs to move beyond the finished product and consider the whole journey from quarry to building.

Cliveden

As Tom Flemons of Cliveden Conservation notes, local sourcing is one part of that equation and helps stone have a lower environmental impact when used close to its source. While Alex Bertrand of The Stonemasonry Company points out that his company prioritises local stone where possible, alongside minimising waste and making use of the material’s natural strength.

For stonemason Blair Woodland, locality is equally connected to the character of the finished work. He aims to source stone as close as possible to where it will be used, with regional materials providing a direct relationship between construction and place. His work with Cornish slate demonstrates how geological variation can be an asset rather than something to standardise away. Similarly, stone artist Zoë Wilson also works almost exclusively with British stone. “There is something deeply meaningful about using materials that come from the landscapes I am part of,” she says. Her approach combines the practical benefits of shorter supply chains with a more specific relationship between material, maker and place.

Zoe Wilson

That diversity of stone is important, and Marcus Paine of Hutton Stone has argued for a broader understanding of indigenous stone as a construction material, describing the need to see it as “something more than an overly sanitised, thin, luxury dressing”. The implication is that sustainability is partly a question of how fully the material is understood and what roles it is allowed to perform.

Szerelmey

We’ve already examined the growing move towards structural stone in previous articles in the series, but it’s worth noting that it offers sustainable credentials too. The work of Alex Bertrand and co at the Stonemasonry Company has explored stone as a structural material rather than simply a finish, and Tamsin Pickeral of Szerelmey underlines the historical precedent: “the stone was the structure”. Reconsidering that relationship has implications for how much steel, concrete and other materials are required within a building, which can greatly reduce the embodied carbon of a building. 

Equally, reuse presents another opportunity for more sustainable practices in construction. Tamsin also observes that “the reuse agenda is really interesting as it is making people think differently about how to do things.” Rather than treating existing stone as an obstacle to new construction, the growing emphasis on reuse creates the possibility of retaining material already in circulation and reconsidering how buildings are altered.

Ca'Pietra 

The same principle can be applied at the scale of fabrication. Faye Newman argues that designers should consider how much can be achieved from the material already extracted rather than treating every application in isolation. “To me, utilising the whole slab of material is crucial,” she says. Offcuts and less conventional pieces can have further applications elsewhere in a project, reducing the amount of usable material that is discarded. Holly Kerslake of Ca’ Pietra similarly points to the potential of fabrication off-cuts, including their use in “crazy paving”, while also looking at recycled stone, packaging, sample reuse and transport as parts of a wider effort to reduce waste.

For artist Livia Spinolo, however, sustainability begins before the material reaches the studio or building site. Responsible extraction, environmental impact and ethical labour all need to be considered. “I dedicate time to engaging with the organisations and art institutions I partner with. Conversations with environmental teams and on-site visits - observing how materials interact with their surroundings - form a significant part of my daily practice.”

Her work also demonstrates that the relationship between extraction and environment need not be framed entirely in terms of impact. For Ab Initio, Portland stone was selected because of its relationship with the landscape and its ability to form part of an ecological habitat. Here, the material is not simply chosen for its appearance or physical performance, but for what it can contribute to the finished project.

There is also a less tangible resource at stake, and one that sadly appears to be on the decline: knowledge. Lincoln Cathedral mason Rachael Wragg’s concerns about the future of masonry skills and Tom Flemons’ involvement in training point to the importance of retaining the expertise needed to quarry, fabricate, construct, repair and conserve stone. While we have been talking to skilled individuals within the industry, a material cannot be considered a long-term resource if the knowledge required to use it responsibly disappears.

The Surface Perspectives conversations therefore suggest that stone’s sustainability cannot be reduced to the fact that it is natural, nor to the durability of the finished product. It lies in a chain of decisions: responsible extraction, appropriate sourcing, efficient processing, reduced waste, structural use, reuse and the skills needed to make all of those things possible.

The most sustainable approach may ultimately be the one that treats stone as a resource rather than merely a product. That means understanding what has been extracted, making the most of it, keeping it in circulation where possible and considering its environmental and material consequences at every stage.

Transforming a residential property into a commercial space can be a tricky design challenge to get right, not least when the new environment is intended as a studio for an architectural practice. Local Local has transformed a 77m² ground-floor apartment in Athens’ leafy Kolonaki neighbourhood into its first permanent studio, using a restrained approach that retains the character of the existing space while adapting it to the needs of a growing practice.

Nestled among the surrounding neoclassical and modernist buildings, the apartment was already part of the architectural fabric of the neighbourhood. But with their usual attentiveness to context and material history, the practice has created a creative haven for the team. What’s more, as a leased property, the brief called for non-structural interventions, prompting the studio to work with what was there rather than substantially alter it.

Original timber floors were repaired and lightened to increase the sense of daylight in the ground-floor interior, while the walls were painted white. Existing doors with rippled glazed panels were restored and given a slightly darker finish. An arched entrance was retained, providing a defining feature within the otherwise simple interior.

The L-shaped plan is divided between the main workspace and a meeting room, formerly a bedroom. Here, the original wardrobe has also been retained. Its doors were removed and replaced with roll-up blinds, turning the existing joinery into open storage for material samples and paperwork.

Furniture combines existing pieces with new elements designed or sourced specifically for the studio. A solid cypress table in the meeting room was bought from Sofia Xanthakou’s cousin, who had designed the piece, after an unexpected encounter while she was moving into the apartment. The table became a reference point for the practice’s own furniture, including a larger co-working table and two workstations positioned beside the windows. These combine solid timber with Formica, chosen to withstand the demands of everyday studio use.

The practice’s library occupies one wall, housed in a Vitsoe shelving system. Built up over almost a decade, including during Xanthakou’s architecture studies and periods working in Boston and London, the collection had previously been in storage. Here, the books form both a working resource and a backdrop to the studio.

Materiality becomes more explicit at the entrance. Local Local invited artist Theodore Psychoyos to produce two site-specific marble sculptures for the space: a console and seating. Marble is a recurring material in the practice’s architectural work, and its introduction into the studio gives the entrance a more distinctive identity while connecting the workplace to the material language of its projects.

Elsewhere, a custom perforated metal frame runs along one wall, supporting a pistachio-coloured pinboard used for displaying and reviewing work. The arrangement encourages the team to step away from their screens and assess projects collectively. Lighting includes ceiling fixtures by Michael Anastassiades, whose work Xanthakou has long admired, alongside desk lamps by Artemide.

The result is an office shaped less by wholesale transformation than by a close reading of what the apartment already offered. Existing floors, doors, joinery and spatial characteristics remain visible, while new furniture, lighting and marble elements introduce the requirements and identity of the practice.

“The studio is a direct expression of our approach to space and design,” says Xanthakou. “As our own workplace, it combines practicality with our aesthetic principles, leaving room for play, improvisation and the gradual accumulation of objects, ideas, and stories.”

All images © LZ