DFF RESEARCH NETWORK

The third and final field workshop for our DFF scientific research network was conducted on October 24-25 in Mallorca, Spain, in collaboration with Aulets Arquitectes. We asked the question: What ecological relations exist between the quarry landscape, stone building culture, and geology?

Mallorca offers a rich geological heritage, including Quaternary coastal formations and Triassic mountain ranges. A wide, windswept marine platform, dating mainly from the Late Pleistocene, has provided the island’s principle building stone, called marés, a bioclastic clacareous sandstone.

The island is also an excellent example of a stone ecology. Up to 1500 former marés quarries have been identified, dating back centuries. Many communities were built with stone extracted from the surrounding landscape, and hundreds of small, coastal quarries along the south and west were exploied to build Palma and its monuments. Many quarries have been filled in, and only about 15 are in operation today.

Mallorca is experiencing a renaissance of massive stone architecture. A tight-knit group of architects, builders, and local officials are working to promote marés as a cultural asset and more sustainable alternative to concrete.

Also in attendance were Oliver Wilton and Matthew Barnett Howland from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, and Guillem Aloy from ADEMA.

Workshop Program