London architecture practice Inglis Badrashi Loddo (IBLA) has completed Walled Courtyard, a discreet single-storey home inserted within a former walled garden behind a Grade II-listed Georgian townhouse in Kennington. Built on a constrained infill site, the 64m² house demonstrates the practice's approach to working within historic urban settings, using material continuity and careful spatial planning to create contemporary architecture that responds to its inherited context.

Founded on a belief that new buildings should complement rather than compete with existing places, IBLA frequently works with historic buildings, brownfield sites and sensitive urban locations. At Walled Courtyard, that philosophy is reflected in a scheme that reinterprets the site's former garden enclosure while accommodating modern living within a compact footprint.

Located on Cleaver Square, one of London's earliest planned residential squares dating from 1789, the site had served successively as a walled garden and later a car park. Planning requirements stipulated that the historic garden wall be reinstated without external windows, ensuring the new house would read as a continuous perimeter wall from the street. Rather than treating this as a limitation, the architects used it to shape the design, creating an inward-looking home organised around two courtyards.

Entry is through a small forecourt enclosed by a reconstructed brick wall built from a combination of reclaimed and new bricks. Beyond, the house unfolds around a central planted courtyard that draws daylight deep into the plan while establishing long views through the building. The arrangement allows the two-bedroom home to feel considerably larger than its modest footprint, with each room connected visually to both the garden and adjacent spaces.

Materiality is central to the project and reinforces its relationship with the site's history. Reclaimed London mixed-stock brick laid in lime mortar references the former garden walls that once enclosed the plot. Around the exterior, the brickwork remains untreated, allowing the new construction to sit comfortably alongside the historic fabric. Within the courtyard, however, the character subtly changes. Lime-washed brickwork with thick flush mortar joints creates a quieter, more monolithic backdrop, complemented by grey porcelain flooring, exposed softwood roof joists and carefully detailed brick soldier courses.

The masonry is used not simply as an external skin but as an organising architectural element. Deeply recessed lintels and thick brick reveals emphasise thresholds throughout the house, lending weight and permanence to the compact interiors while framing carefully considered views between rooms and courtyards.

Elsewhere, bespoke joinery helps maximise the efficiency of the plan. A custom plywood kitchen sits at the heart of the house, while integrated storage, including a concealed services cupboard behind a movable shelving unit, allows every part of the building to perform multiple functions. At one end of the plan, a curved bathroom follows the line of the site boundary beneath a circular rooflight, responding directly to the geometry of the enclosing wall.

Environmental performance has been integrated without compromising the building's restrained appearance. An air source heat pump is concealed within the entrance courtyard, while underfloor heating, high levels of insulation and a sedum roof reduce operational energy demand. The planted roof also restores the impression of a garden when viewed from neighbouring buildings, recalling the site's earlier landscape.

Jamal Badrashi, director at IBLA, says: "Walled Courtyard is a project about creating richness within constraint. The site is extremely compact, but by thoughtfully choreographing natural light and framing views, we were able to create a home that feels generous and unexpectedly expansive.

"The memory of the original walled garden informed every aspect of the scheme – from the inward-looking arrangement of rooms to the material palette of reclaimed brick and lime mortar. Rather than inserting something overtly contrasting into the historic setting, we wanted the house to feel rooted in its context, as though it had quietly always belonged there."

As architecture continues its shift towards digital workflows, materials are increasingly encountered on screen long before they arrive on site. Yet translating the complexity of stone, timber, ceramics and other surfaces into accurate digital resources remains a significant challenge. Glasgow-based platform Architextures was established to bridge that gap, combining a growing library of real-world materials with tools that help architects and designers create more accurate drawings, visualisations and specifications. In this edition of Surface Perspectives, founder Ryan Canning discusses the importance of understanding the stories behind materials, the role of digital tools in specification, and why natural stone still has much to offer contemporary architecture.

What does a typical day look like for you?

I live close to our studio so every morning starts with a 10-minute bike ride which is enjoyable as long as the rain stays off! In the office, we start each day with a stand-up meeting with the development team, where we talk about what we did yesterday and what we're working on today. After that, it is a varied mix of things. Some days I may need to concentrate on the more monotonous admin tasks involved in running the business, while on others I'm back to coding or working on mockups for new features.

We're lucky that much of the work we do is self-directed so we can be flexible around deadlines. That also means in some cases what we do on a daily basis can be quite reactive to other factors, for example if we encounter bugs or user feedback that we think is important to prioritise.

How integral are materials/surfaces to your day-to-day?

Materials are at the centre of everything we do. When I first started building the site in 2019, the main aim was to build a practical tool to make it quick and easy to customise materials for 3D models and drawings. The secondary goal was to build a well organised library around the editor tool, that communicates detailed visual and technical information about the materials to our users. We now have a wide range of materials on the platform, over 8,000 individual listings, ranging from bland acoustic ceiling tiles to incredible Andesite Porphyry.

Although our output is digital, the images on the site come from real materials. We spend a lot of time sourcing the materials, sometimes receiving them to our studio and occasionally travelling to quarries, yards or warehouses to take photos on site. It's important for us that we see and understand the real materials behind the images and we think it's an important consideration for our audience too, who work on projects that will eventually be built.

What are the biggest lessons you have taken forward from your original training? 

Although I studied architecture and I'm now running a software company, my original training was a very good foundation for what I'm doing now. Much of the teaching in architectural education and practice concentrates on problem-solving, and is also very wide-ranging in skills that are transferable to building a business. In particular, design, marketing and communication.

An important lesson I learned while studying is to spend more time in the early stages of design or development building prototypes than researching and planning potential solutions and trying to extrapolate from that. I find that producing a draft of your idea and iterating on it helps solve designs issues faster and also gives you something tangible to help drive projects forward.

Which project/s are you most proud of being involved with and why?

It has to be Architextures! It started off as a side project and grew gradually to become a fully fledged company with users from all over the world. Since we launched the editor, we've had continuous feedback from architects and designers which really helped me to understand the wider appeal and the opportunity to build something bigger than originally planned. In that same regard, the work we now do with manufacturers to digitise their materials has also been rewarding. Traditionally it has been very difficult to do but can now be done quickly and brings value to both the manufacturers and architects who want to use their materials in their drawings.

What do you feel are the main challenges facing the stone and surfaces industry today?

For stone I believe there are a lot of misconceptions around cost, as well as how it can be used structurally due to the fact it has not been widely used in that way for a long period in the UK. For general surfaces and construction materials as a whole, I think there is often a knowledge gap between designers seeing a sample and specifying the material, and understanding the story behind how it has been sourced and manufactured. Understanding that story helps inform the choices designers make and can lead to better outcomes for sustainability and efficiency but also the design itself.

Although we provide information about the materials on our platform, we recognised that there was an opportunity for a richer format where we could have in depth writing with image and video footage to help show how they come to be. This led to the creation of Stories, our online magazine where we write about architecture projects from the point of view of their materiality.

In your opinion, what are the positives of using stone in the built environment?

It's a natural material that doesn't require complex manufacturing processes with lots of ingredients. That has knock on effects for the amount of energy required and has benefits for human health when the need for synthetic materials is reduced. When used structurally, it reduces the need for other carbon-intensive materials like steel primary structure as well as support systems for cladding if the stone is also used as the finish. Finally, it looks great!

How does sustainability shape your thinking and decision-making, and how do materials fit into this?

There are three main sustainability considerations for us as a business. The first is how we actually build the software. The internet is now a huge contributor to global emissions and people are becoming more aware of this. We serve 4 million downloads per month so it's important we make the files as efficient as possible. When developing, we spend a lot of time thinking about how we can optimise the page size and reduce the impact for users and their energy use.

Next is the availability of sustainability data on the platform. At present, manufacturers can populate each of their listings with any data they want to provide but there's no requirement for manufacturers to add sustainability data specifically. Our aim is to make sustainability data available for all materials on the site from sources like EPDs or estimates based on the category where those are not provided. The next step is to then allow designers to filter search results based on that data to help make specification decisions.

The final way is how we operate logistically. We promote green forms of transport as much as possible like cycling to work. When we do events abroad, we take the train as much as possible. We've previously travelled by train from our studio in Glasgow to events in the Netherlands and as far as Denmark. 

As we continue to report, designers are increasingly exploring circular approaches to material use and attention is shifting beyond recycling towards the overlooked byproducts of construction itself. Japanese architecture and design practice AtMa approaches this question through SUR+PLUS, a stone-led furniture system that reconsiders surplus materials not as waste, but as resources capable of forming new objects while retaining their individual histories.

Founded in Tokyo, AtMa works across architecture, interiors and product design, with a practice centred on the relationship between materials, making and spatial experience. Rather than pursuing uniformity, its projects often examine how existing materials and construction systems can be adapted to generate new forms and uses.

SUR+PLUS addresses a familiar consequence of interior fit-out and construction. Ordering materials with an additional margin has long been standard practice, allowing for breakages, design changes and installation tolerances. The result is an inevitable accumulation of unused stone, timber, tiles and other finishes that often remain without a purpose despite retaining their material value.

Rather than reprocessing these remnants, AtMa proposes a system that accepts them in their existing condition. Offcuts of stone, timber, ceramic tile and carpet are inserted together into specially designed joint components, allowing them to become the structural elements of chairs without cutting or reshaping new material. Seats, backs and legs emerge from fragments of differing thicknesses, textures and dimensions, each preserving the qualities that distinguished it in its previous application.

Stone plays a particularly significant role within the project. Instead of disguising chipped edges, fractured surfaces or natural variation, the system allows these characteristics to remain visible. Pieces of stone that would ordinarily be discarded become load-bearing components, their weight and permanence balanced against lighter materials through a simple assembly method.

The project also rethinks the architectural idea of the joint. Conventionally developed to create precise, uniform construction, joints here perform a different function, accommodating difference rather than eliminating it. Fragments are connected with their imperfections intact, allowing contrasting materials to coexist without being forced into visual consistency.

In doing so, SUR+PLUS shifts the discussion around circular design away from recycling alone and towards the systems that generate excess in the first place. By demonstrating that surplus stone and other architectural materials can retain both structural and aesthetic value without further processing, AtMa offers an alternative model in which material differences become the defining quality of the design rather than a problem to be concealed.

All images © Kenta Hasegawa

As entertaining at home becomes a more important part of how people use their interiors, the home bar is moving from a small add-on to a feature in its own right. Oli Webb, Director at Cullifords, discusses how natural and engineered stone surfaces are helping shape these spaces, from compact drinks stations to dedicated wine rooms.

“Home bars have changed significantly in recent years. They are no longer simply about storing bottles or creating a small drinks area in the corner of a room. Increasingly, they are being designed as part of the wider home, whether that is within a kitchen, dining space, living room, basement or dedicated wine room.

At Cullifords, we are seeing more homeowners and designers treat the bar as a place to introduce stronger materials, richer colour and more individual surfaces. It is a space designed for hosting, so there is often more confidence to use a stone that feels expressive or dramatic.

A kitchen may need to work hard every day and suit the whole household, but a home bar can be a little more atmospheric. That makes it a natural place to use bold veining, darker tones, high-impact splashbacks or full-height stone walls.

One of the reasons stone works so well in a home bar is that the material can be seen from several angles. In a kitchen, the surface is often used horizontally across a worktop or island. In a bar, there are more opportunities to use the slab vertically as well, whether across a bar front, splashback, shelving backdrop or waterfall end.

This allows the natural movement of the stone to become part of the design. A strongly veined marble or quartzite can be book-matched behind shelves, wrapped around an island or used to frame a drinks display. Under low-level lighting, the texture and movement of the surface becomes even more visible, which is why stone works so well in evening entertaining spaces.

Darker stones are particularly effective in home bars. Rich green quartzites, such as Verde Cosmopolitan, introduce depth and colour, especially when paired with materials such as brass, dark timber and warm lighting. Rosso Levanto marble can bring a very different mood, with its deep red tone and pale veining creating a stronger, more dramatic effect.

Breccia Capraia is another good option for bars where the stone needs to be the main feature. Its movement and warmer tones work well across bar fronts and waterfall islands, where the veining can continue from the top surface down the side of the unit. This gives the bar a more complete, built-in look.

For lighter spaces, Calacatta Vagli marble offers a softer alternative. Its white background and grey veining make it suitable for bars that sit within kitchens or open-plan living spaces, where the aim may be to create a feature without making the area feel too dark or separate from the rest of the room.

Then there’s the choice between natural stone and engineered surfaces, which often comes down to how the space will be used and the type of finish the client wants to achieve.

Natural stone is often selected for the individuality it brings. Each slab has its own colour variation, veining and movement, which means the finished bar feels unique. This is particularly appealing in a home bar, where people often want the space to feel personal and less predictable.

Engineered stone can be a strong alternative where consistency is important. It is well suited to larger bar tops, splashbacks and more streamlined schemes where the client wants a cleaner, more uniform appearance. It can also work well when the bar needs to sit quietly within a larger kitchen or living space.

In many cases, the most successful projects use the surface to set the tone. A smaller bar can carry a bold stone very well, because the material is being used in a more concentrated way. A larger bar or wine room may benefit from a quieter surface, particularly if it is being used across several elements.

Wine rooms are also becoming more design-led. Rather than being hidden away, they are increasingly designed as visible spaces within the home, with glass-fronted cabinetry, open shelving, tasting counters and illuminated displays.

Stone works particularly well in this setting because it provides a strong backdrop to glass, bottles, timber and metalwork. Darker marbles and quartzites can create a more intimate feel, while lighter stones can help brighten a compact room or cellar-style space.

A stone backdrop behind shelving, a tasting island or a small serving counter can make the room feel much more complete. It also creates a link between the wine room and other areas of the home, especially where the same or complementary surfaces are used in the kitchen or bar.

The most effective home bars are not always the largest either. A compact drinks station can feel just as successful when the materials are used well. Continuing stone from the worktop onto the splashback, adding a stone shelf or using an offcut for a smaller surface can give the space a more finished appearance.

Lighting is also important. Stone responds very well to warm, directional lighting, particularly where there is veining, texture or movement within the slab. Illuminated shelving, under-counter lighting or a backlit feature wall can all help bring out the character of the material.

There is also an opportunity to be practical with stone selection. A bar top needs to cope with those glasses, bottles, citrus, spills and regular use, so the finish and maintenance requirements should be discussed at the start of the project. Some clients will want a surface that develops character over time, while others may prefer something more uniform and easy to manage.

For us, the appeal of the home bar is that it gives people a place to be more expressive with stone. It does not need to match every other surface in the home. It can introduce contrast, create atmosphere and make entertaining feel more special. 

As more homeowners invest in spaces designed around hosting, the home bar is becoming less about function alone and more about experience. Whether it is a full bar, a wine room or a small drinks area within a kitchen, the right surface can turn a practical space into somewhere people naturally gather.”

In the first article of this Insights series, Giuliana Giorgi explored the growing interest in indigenous stone and the value of reconnecting architecture with local geology, craftsmanship and regional identity. In this second instalment, she turns to one of the industry's most pressing topics: sustainability. Looking beyond embodied carbon alone, Giorgi argues that responsible stone specification depends on a much broader understanding of provenance, durability, maintenance and long-term reuse, questioning whether current methods of assessing environmental performance tell the whole story.

“Stone is often presented as a low-carbon material. In many respects it is. Compared with concrete or steel, it requires little processing, and when specified well, it can also remain in service for centuries. Yet researching indigenous stone made me realise that this description, on its own, tells us very little. Sustainability is not a property a material carries with it. It is the outcome of a sequence of decisions: where the material comes from, how it is extracted, how it is detailed, maintained and, ultimately, reused.

One of the first challenges is measurement. Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) are becoming an increasingly important part of specification, but not every quarry has produced one. Talking with quarry managers during the research, this came up again and again as a structural disadvantage: an EPD takes time and money that many smaller, family-run operators can't justify without an increase in demand, leaving them to compete against materials that can point to a certificate, when all they can point to is generations of accumulated experience and common sense.

And even where EPDs exist, comparing them is difficult. There is still no agreed way of calculating stone's embodied carbon. One geologist I interviewed explained that a thin cladding panel is sawn, honed, sometimes resin-treated - a highly processed product - while a structural block goes through far less handling and, done right, comes out with a markedly better carbon figure. Yet fixings, backing systems and coatings still sit outside most calculations altogether. Making stone's environmental data both more available and more consistent has to become an industry priority.

Carbon, however, is only one part of the picture. 

As I found while mapping the UK's quarrying landscape, provenance carries weight a carbon figure alone can't capture. Imported stone appears in a lower cost range, but that price rarely reflects the transport emissions behind it, the variable extraction and labour standards, or the difficulty of verifying any of it from a distance. Specifying it from abroad also does something closer to home: it reduces demand for the quarries that still supply the repairs our historic buildings depend on, and hollows out the specialist skills that keep those quarries alive.

What embodied carbon rarely captures is durability. A stone selected with an understanding of its geological properties, exposure conditions and intended application can remain in service for centuries. Poor specification has the opposite effect, shortening service life regardless of a material's initial carbon footprint. Durability, repairability and the potential for reuse are as much a part of sustainability as transport distance or manufacturing emissions.

This, I think, is one of the key findings of the research: specification is itself a sustainability decision, and usually one made too late. Stone is too often chosen after the principal architectural decisions are already fixed, treated as a finish rather than a material with its own geology and its own expression in the building. The people who understand those qualities best - quarry managers, stonemasons, geologists, conservation specialists - are rarely in the room when those decisions are made. One stonemason I interviewed explained that procurement should never start after design - that's the biggest mistake. His process is simple in principle: visit the quarries, study what they can actually offer, and let that inform the design, not the other way round. Re-learning how to work with stone in all its nuances doesn't call for new technology - only earlier conversations and a willingness to let the material shape the design.

The question, then, is not whether stone is sustainable. It is whether we are specifying it well.”

It has to be said, saunas are having a moment. Even as temperatures continue to soar, the UK has seen a spike in private and public heated facilities up and down the country. So perhaps it’s timely for one to emerge afloat on one of the country's busiest canal networks. 

SOAK is an off-grid floating bathhouse that brings sauna and cold-water bathing created by architecture practice badweather. Housed within a restored 56ft-widebeam canal boat, the project combines adaptive reuse with self-sufficient infrastructure, demonstrating how architecture can create new forms of public space without relying on permanent foundations.

Founded as an experimental architecture, scenography and design collective, badweather is known for working across temporary structures, installations and buildings, often using standardised and reclaimed materials to explore new spatial possibilities. SOAK extends that approach into a permanent yet mobile building, transforming a near-derelict vessel into a travelling wellness space that relocates every two weeks.

Co-founded by badweather's Leo Sixsmith and chef Riccardo Codacci-Pisanelli, the project was conceived as a communal place centred on bathing rituals and social gathering, while responding to the unique opportunities offered by London's waterways. Rather than occupying a fixed site, the bathhouse operates as a piece of floating architecture, independent of conventional hospitality infrastructure.

The project began with the complete restoration of a steel canal boat acquired in 2025. Extensive water damage, rotten floors and a deteriorating hull required a full strip-out before reconstruction could begin. Around 40 collaborators, including fabricators, carpenters, electricians and specialist engineers, contributed to the conversion.

Spatial constraints imposed by the original steel hull shaped the design. Internal structural ribs dictated the position of walls and openings, resulting in a linear sequence of spaces leading visitors from a low-lit entrance through changing and cold plunge areas before arriving at the sauna. Enlarged portholes and a new picture window at the bow introduce natural light while reframing views of the canal, helping to expand the perception of the narrow interior.

Materiality plays a central role throughout the project. Consistent with badweather's wider body of work, the interiors combine exposed industrial components with carefully crafted detailing. Threaded rods, aluminium framing, chrome-plated copper pipework and fabricated steel elements are left visible, giving the project a robust, utilitarian character while demonstrating precision in assembly as well as being decorative finishes.

The contrast between spaces is equally deliberate, with the wet room avoiding timber altogether, favouring durable surfaces suited to constant moisture while reinforcing a more clinical atmosphere before the warmth of the sauna. Within the sauna itself, floating aluminium-framed benches are lined with thermally treated Aspen and Alder, selected for their performance in high heat and humidity as well as their natural appearance. Suspended above the floor without conventional supports, the benches reinforce the sensation of floating within the boat's tapered hull.

Sixsmith says: "Most of badweather's projects have existed in counter-cultural spaces and nightlife, which have really been about how people gather and build relationships. The materiality of our work is usually quite industrial, very metallic, using standardised building components, which is perhaps in contrast to people's usual experience of a sauna or Scandinavian design. What has carried through into SOAK is how we've used those everyday materials in ways that feel unexpectedly ethereal, delicate and ultimately beautiful."

The project's off-grid infrastructure is as carefully integrated as its architecture. Canal water is filtered through a six-stage treatment process with UV purification before being stored on board, while a reverse osmosis system supplies drinking water that is subsequently remineralised. Electricity is generated by solar panels and stored in a bespoke battery system, with heat provided by a wood-fired stove. Together, these systems enable SOAK to operate independently of mains water, electricity and sewage connections, allowing it to move freely through London's canal network while remaining fully self-sufficient.

Rather than treating mobility as a constraint, SOAK demonstrates how adaptive reuse, carefully considered material choices and off-grid technology can combine to create an architecture that is both permanent in construction and flexible in operation.

All images © Kaye Song

As timber flooring continues to evolve, the distinction between solid and engineered construction has become increasingly important for architects, designers and homeowners alike. While solid wood remains closely associated with traditional craftsmanship and heritage projects, engineered timber has become the preferred choice for many contemporary interiors thanks to improvements in stability, installation and long-term performance.

Anthony Scott, Global Product and Innovation Director at Havwoods, believes understanding how the two products differ is essential to making the right specification.

The biggest distinction is in the construction. Solid wood flooring is produced from a single piece of hardwood, while engineered boards combine a real hardwood wear layer with multiple supporting layers beneath. That construction makes engineered flooring significantly more stable, reducing the natural movement caused by changes in temperature and humidity.

This is particularly important in today's homes, where underfloor heating, large areas of glazing and open-plan living create conditions that can cause solid timber to expand, contract or develop gaps over time. Engineered flooring is designed to minimise that movement, giving homeowners much greater flexibility over where timber can be used.

That stability also opens up more design possibilities. Engineered construction allows manufacturers to produce wider and longer boards than would normally be practical with solid timber, while making more efficient use of the raw material. It also provides the consistency needed for patterned floors such as herringbone and chevron, together with a broad choice of factory-applied finishes including UV oils, lacquers and brushed textures.

Installation is another area where engineered flooring has changed expectations. Most products are compatible with underfloor heating when installed correctly, making them well suited to contemporary residential and commercial interiors. Because many boards are supplied pre-finished, designers and clients know exactly how the floor will look before installation begins, while reducing the amount of finishing work required on site.

We generally recommend engineered boards are glued down, although many products can also be installed as floating floors using click-lock systems. Solid timber, by comparison, is fixed directly to the subfloor using nails or adhesive, creating a more permanent installation that can be more difficult to alter later.

Longevity is often seen as the main advantage of solid wood because it can be sanded and refinished repeatedly. However, engineered flooring can also be manufactured with substantial wear layers that allow multiple refinishing cycles. The benefit is that wear layer thickness can be tailored to suit different applications, providing an appropriate balance between durability, service life and efficient use of timber resources. Products with thicker wear layers are particularly well suited to high-traffic environments where long-term performance is a priority.

Solid timber will always have an important place, particularly in period properties and like-for-like restoration projects. But engineered wood now offers the same authentic timber surface while providing greater stability, flexibility and compatibility with modern methods of construction. As projects increasingly demand durability alongside timeless design, engineered flooring has become the practical choice for a growing range of applications."

Natural stone continues to influence the development of new surface materials, not only through its visual character but also through renewed interest in provenance, durability and the value of local resources. SensiEtna, a collaboration between Florim, Matteo Thun and Benedetto Fasciana, takes these ideas as its starting point, drawing on the distinctive qualities of Sicilian lava stone to create a collection that celebrates both material heritage and circular production.

Developed with Sicilian lava stone specialist Nerosicilia, the collection reinterprets one of Italy's most enduring natural materials through a combination of traditional craftsmanship and contemporary manufacturing. Rather than extracting new stone for every product, SensiEtna is produced using offcuts recovered from lava slab production, giving new value to material that would otherwise become waste.

The project centres on the geological character of Mount Etna, where volcanic activity has created lava stone with distinctive mineral variation, colour and texture. Those natural characteristics are preserved rather than concealed, with the collection embracing the irregular surfaces and tactile qualities associated with volcanic rock.

Recycled glass, including reclaimed monitor glass, is fused onto the lava stone surface to create decorative finishes that respond to light while adding another layer of recycled content. The resulting palette ranges from pale ivory through warm ochres and reds to deep charcoal, reflecting different stages in lava's transformation from molten material to solid stone.

Texture is equally important to the collection. Three surface finishes – Bugnato, Crosta and Rigatino – offer contrasting tactile experiences, from sculpted relief to rough, weathered textures and finely linear grooves. Rather than acting as purely decorative treatments, the finishes emphasise the physical qualities of the lava stone itself and encourage a more sensory engagement with the material.

The collection is produced in compact formats of 10x10cm, 10x40cm and 20x20cm. These dimensions are determined by the recovery of larger lava slabs, allowing smaller components to be cut from reclaimed material while retaining the individuality of each piece. Natural imperfections and variations are preserved, reinforcing the geological origins of the stone.

SensiEtna also reflects the broader trend towards combining natural materials with circular manufacturing processes. Lava stone has long been valued for its durability, weather resistance and longevity, while its extraction on Mount Etna carries a relatively limited environmental footprint compared with many processed materials. By pairing reclaimed lava with recycled glass, the collection extends that narrative, demonstrating how waste streams can become part of a high-quality architectural surface.

For Matteo Thun and Benedetto Fasciana, the project is as much about revealing the character of the material as designing a finished product. The result is a collection that balances volcanic geology, artisanal processing and contemporary manufacturing, showing how one of Sicily's defining natural materials can be reinterpreted for modern interiors while maintaining a strong connection to its place of origin.

Faye Newman’s day-to-day work as a kitchen designer is rooted in close collaboration with clients, translating how they live into spatial and material decisions that shape the heart of the home. Alongside her design practice, she contributes to broader conversations through her podcast Love Your Kitchen and regular industry events, where she unpicks the decisions and pressures behind the modern renovation process.

As she shares within this Surface Perspectives interview, materials and surfaces have become more than just finishing choices. Once spatial layouts are established, they start to influence atmosphere, rhythm and the sensory experience of a room, quietly shifting how a kitchen is understood and used. For Faye, the expanding landscape of stone, solid surfaces and innovative finishes has opened up a more expressive and considered approach to kitchen design, where detail and texture carry as much weight as function.

What does a typical day look like for you?

Good question! My day-to-day changes frequently depending on the projects and events I'm involved in. For my kitchen design business, a typical day involves frequent calls with clients to work with them on their kitchen design, discuss their projects, and recommend suppliers and trades who would be a perfect fit.

At the early stage, it is important to really home in and understand the reason for the change, as well as the impact a better-planned layout or more storage will have on my clients and their families' lives. I love getting to know their daily habits and how they currently use their space, so I can get a full understanding of everybody involved. Renovating any part of the home, but especially the kitchen, can feel very stressful and overwhelming. Part of my role is guiding clients through these less glamorous phases and reminding them that their beautiful new kitchen is in sight!

Alongside client design work, I host a podcast called 'Love Your Kitchen', which is designed to take the overwhelm out of endless project choices and help homeowners create a space they love walking into every day. I also participate in industry events frequently and co-host the Kitchen Stage at Grand Designs Live.

How integral are materials/surfaces to your day-to-day? 

Once the initial layout and space planning of a project are firmed up, materials play a huge role in my day-to-day. The innovation in the choices available now is outstanding, which means we as designers can really tailor these decisions to create a truly personalised and loved space for the homeowner. I'm also finding that the texture of materials is at the forefront of conversations now. Clients aren't just choosing the conventional polished route for stone anymore, and I love playing around with mixing different materials and textures.

Discussing and showing the surfaces available involves frequent conversations during the middle and final stages of the design process. Once the functional aspects are taken care of, materials are always a great opportunity to inject a bit of personality into the design.

What are the biggest lessons you have taken forward from your original training? 

When I started designing back in 2016 for an independent kitchen company, I was trained in the basics. I loved learning about the kitchen process and starting to work directly with clients, but material choices back then seemed quite limited or only available to the better-known bespoke companies, which often resulted in more conventional designs for clients.

Now, ten years later, there is so much more available in the market for homeowners. Furniture suppliers offer a wider variety of stock colours and styles, and more solid surfaces have become readily available with incredible designs. Playing it safe now is not an option. Even if a client likes the feel of a more neutral scheme, the knowledge and products now available mean that finer details, like layering lighting and textures, create an all-round more tailored approach to their design. It is now completely accessible to everybody if you know where to look.

Which project/s are you most proud of being involved with and why?

As cliché as it sounds, my favourite projects are always all about the clients. As an independent designer, I get to work with so many amazing people and kitchen spaces. To me, a successful project is one where the clients' lives have been transformed for the better, even long after the honeymoon phase of the new design has passed.

One project I always come back to is the Harborne Project, because the feedback was: "Every day I walk into my kitchen, I sigh a massive sigh of relief because of how much I love it." In this particular open-plan design, we had a lot to include. Although it was a beautifully sized space, a huge central pillar left behind after the walls were knocked through offered a real challenge. Moving the initial entrance door further into the lounge allowed us to create a beautiful family island and make the pillar more of a feature instead of a hindrance. We chose bold colours for the furniture, tiles, and interior elements, and paired them with a more muted, timeless solid worktop to create seamless joins around the pillar. The quality of work from the worktop supplier was outstanding.

Another project that springs to mind is one where I worked on the initial furniture layouts alongside interior designer Elaine Lewis. It was a completely disjointed room initially, but it had the scope to be something truly special, and the final result looks stunning! This is a great example of how beautiful it can be to mix natural materials with painted furniture, create a subtle difference in texture with the addition of fluted elements, and go all out on a statement worktop choice. The transformation of this kitchen is definitely one of my favourites.

Lastly, another design favourite is a kitchen and home bar design I am currently working on. The apartment looks over the River Thames, and the overarching goals for the design are high functionality and quality, while also bringing the outside in. We are achieving this through the overall colour scheme, the material choices between hard surfaces and fabrics, and strategic lighting positioning to ensure the view is at the forefront of the design. I always love working on open-plan projects because when the finer details, zoning, and material choices harmonise perfectly, you are part of creating a truly holistic design.

What do you feel are the main challenges facing the stone and surfaces industry today?

 

From a designer's perspective, the main challenge in the stone industry today is the education surrounding material choices. Good design is now accessible to everybody, which means educating clients on the stones available is crucial. Brilliant innovations are constantly evolving behind the scenes that homeowners are completely unaware of. It is up to us to have these conversations about the options available, helping them choose a work surface or flooring suited not solely to the look, but also to their lifestyle, property type, and daily habits.

For example, there is a common misconception that all granites are highly porous because they are natural products, and many clients don't know that textured finishes like leathered or honed effects are even an option. I've been fortunate enough to gain this knowledge directly from worktop distributors and manufacturers, but many designers are still unaware, which unfortunately results in the end-user being left in the dark too.

I find homeowners conduct much more of their own research now, especially when it comes to worktops. They are very savvy at reading online reviews or seeking advice from friends and family about what stone to choose. However, a couple of bad reviews can prevent them from purchasing a great type of worktop, even if the issue mentioned was a unique manufacturing fault or down to a misuse of the product. This is a massive challenge for the industry, alongside navigating high-profile media coverage like the health and safety focus around respirable crystalline silica.

Finally, helping homeowners understand what a high-quality installation looks like versus a poor one is essential. Homeowners might only purchase a kitchen a few times in their lives. If they don't have a past bad experience to compare it to, they will most likely opt for the most cost-effective quotation. Because decisions on these surfaces usually happen towards the end of the project, overall renovation fees have often increased more than planned, making budget a real strain.

In your opinion, what are the positives of using stone in the built environment? 

 

The obvious positive of using stone in a multifunctional room like a kitchen is its durability, ease of cleaning, and how effortless it makes food prep and cooking. From a design perspective, working with a full slab size as opposed to fixed lengths and depths allows for far more flexibility. For instance, it doesn't limit cabinet storage choices below when opting for a wall-mounted vented hob, and it gives you the ability to create a tailored shelf behind a hob or in a bar area for olive oils, seasonings, or spirits. If you aren't eating into a brand-new slab, creating these custom features is actually really inexpensive to do.

Working with full slabs also allows us to make a massive impact vertically. In most cases, being able to continue the worktop as a splashback set at whichever height, or even specifying a contrasting stone here, creates a beautiful contrast and statement. It also opens up the opportunity to play with mixing and matching two different types of stone, perhaps a subtle, hard-working surface for the main run and a bold, dramatic stone for the island. For a true statement piece, especially in a home bar or entertainment zone, the ability to specify translucent stones that can be backlit adds an incredible layer of luxury and ambiance.

Kitchen islands are, of course, the must-have element in any project. Being able to increase the material thickness here to add more personality, or designing with waterfall ends, gives the space that instant 'wow factor' that so many homeowners are looking for.

How does sustainability shape your thinking and decision-making, and how do materials fit into this?

For me, sustainability is all about reducing waste and trying to avoid as much material going into landfill as possible. When working with clients, I always want to make the most out of the products available. This means figuring out how materials are being used across the project and finding clever ways to use any leftovers, perhaps inside a larder cabinet or even in other areas of the home.

To me, utilising the whole slab of material is crucial. A lot of homeowners aren’t aware of this, which can often leave worktop fabricators with lots of offcuts to try and sell. It is great to hear that more and more manufacturers are now repurposing this waste for building materials and other industries.

Material choice is also evolving, and as a designer, I love learning about the ever-growing list of sustainable options available now. For example, there are fabricated options where the main core is made from recycled materials with a thinner layer of solid surface applied to give the same level of durability, as well as worktops made specifically from recycled polymers and set within a bio-resin to create seamless acrylic surfaces. I would have been completely unaware of these options had I not done my own research or spoken with designers who focus heavily on sustainable choices.

Another factor that was a big talking point at the Stone & Surfaces Show is the supply chain, which plays a massive role in sustainability. Where possible, sourcing stone from European suppliers would always be my preference over importing from further afield.

Among the growing number of bio-based construction materials reaching the market, agricultural residues remain relatively underused despite their abundance. Wheat straw, produced in millions of tonnes each year as a byproduct of cereal farming, is increasingly being explored as a feedstock for insulation and board products that reduce reliance on petrochemical materials while creating new value for farming communities.

One company working in this space is Agreka Build, a UK climate-tech business developing regenerative construction materials from agricultural waste. Founded by designers, engineers and farmers, the company aims to connect decarbonisation in construction with new opportunities for UK agriculture by transforming wheat straw into high-performance building products.

Its first product, WHEATEX®, is a rigid insulation board manufactured entirely from UK-grown wheat straw without synthetic binders. Rather than concealing its origins, the board retains the golden, fibrous appearance of the crop itself, giving the material a distinctive visual identity while highlighting the provenance of its raw ingredient.

The approach reflects a wider shift towards bio-based materials that prioritise renewable feedstocks alongside operational performance. Wheat straw is one of the UK's most abundant agricultural residues, and Agreka Build works directly with regenerative wheat farmers to establish a local supply chain that keeps both carbon and economic value within rural communities. The company is currently developing a pilot production line in Cheshire as it moves towards commercial manufacture.

Manufactured without synthetic binders, WHEATEX is intended as a rigid insulation board for retrofit, housing and self-build projects. The company says the material combines competitive thermal performance with good compressive strength while remaining lightweight to install and fully recyclable at the end of its life. The board has a thermal conductivity of 0.05W/mK, achieved Euroclass E fire performance without added flame retardants, and offers higher compressive strength than comparable plastic insulation boards. It is lightweight to handle, produces minimal VOCs and particulates during installation, and is designed to be fully recyclable at end of life while supporting moisture regulation within building fabric. Agreka Build estimates the product's embodied carbon to be up to 80% lower than conventional rigid insulation products such as PIR, XPS and EPS.

The company has also begun testing the material outside the laboratory, with a pilot installation in an 1850s farmhouse in Cheshire. WHEATEX® was used as internal wall insulation in two rooms, with environmental monitoring and life-cycle assessment running alongside the retrofit. According to Agreka Build, the trial recorded thermal retention improvements of approximately 20-30%, together with improved acoustic performance, while also helping to develop installation guidance for future projects.

Commercial launch is planned for 2027, with certification testing continuing alongside further pilot projects with architects, contractors and developers. As co-founder and CEO Antoinette Oni explains: "WHEATEX is about more than insulation. It's about proving that agricultural byproducts can be the foundation of a regenerative, scalable materials future — rooted in both rural resilience and urban sustainability."