Today, stone is an often-under-appreciated material as the structural foundation for buildings. Yet it offers real benefits in reducing embodied carbon emissions. Beneath our feet lies one of Britain’s oldest and most overlooked construction resources: stone.
Unlocking UK Stone explored the contemporary potential of indigenous stone construction in the United Kingdom. Developed from the independent research project Unlocking Indigenous Stone Construction in the UK: A Guide for Sustainable Sourcing, funded through the RIBA Scott Brownrigg Award for Sustainable Development, the project investigated whether stone might once again play a meaningful role within contemporary construction culture.
Through film, mapping, material samples and spatial installations, visitors were invited to reconsider stone not simply as a finish or a heritage material, but as a contemporary construction resource capable of participating in the urgent rethinking of architecture today.
The exhibition featured a Spolia, the historical practice of reclaiming and reusing stone from existing structures to create new architectural forms. Constructed from reclaimed stone elements lent by PAYE, this installation explored stone not as a static object, but as a material carrying memory, labour and time. Removed from their original contexts, the fragments become both furniture and archive: traces of extraction, construction, demolition and reuse.
