NEW STONE AGE SEMINAR

Gammel Dok, Strandgade 27b, København K

     Attendance is free.

Join us for an interactive seminar to discuss contemporary developments in the use of structural stone in the UK and Europe. International leaders in engineering, stone fabrication, architecture and academia will present on ”The New Stone Age”, a movement to employ a novel use of natural stone as a low-carbon alternative to concrete.

The seminar is co-organized by the Ecologies of Stone research group at the Aarhus School of Architecture and the Værksted for Arkitektur. It complements the exhibition ‘Stepping Stones’, currently on display, which utilizes low-processed, waste blocks of stone from Larvik, Norway – known as larvikite – to construct an experimental, full-scale structural floor.

Speakers and schedule

13:00   Welcome and introduction, Jonathan Foote, Aarhus School of Architecture

13:15   Building in stone, an ethnography, Natalia Petkova, Caruso St John Architects, Zurich

13:45   The future stone quarry, Thomas Løvald and Helene Nesheim, Lundhs, Norway

14:15   coffee break

14:30   Future Construction in Stone, Steve Webb, Webb Yates, London

15:00   Stone by Default, Pierre Bidaud, Stone Masonry Company, London

15:30   concluding remarks and questions

Speaker bios:

Jonathan Foote, PhD is an architect and Associate Professor at Aarhus School of Architecture, Denmark. He leads the research group, Ecologies of Stone, a trans-disciplinary research group that examines stone extraction and massive stone construction as an interconnected, cyclical process. He is a member of the international research group NeReMa (International Network for Research on Marble and Decorative Stones), and has produced multiple, exhibition-based research projects using Nordic stones and marble.

Natália Peťková, PhD, is a Bratislava-born, London-grown architect presently working as for Caruso St John Architects in Zurich. Her work spans building design, research on questions of cultural memory and material resource, and largely non-academic writing. Graduating from the University of Cambridge (2015) and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (2018), she holds a doctorate from the École nationale supérieure d’architecture Paris‑Malaquais — Université Paris Est (2023) which explores what the choice of stone in structure is doing to contemporary architecture.

Steve Webb is a structural engineer and director of Webb Yates in London. He interested in combining imagination with technical rigour to create artful and inventive structural designs, and has pioneered the practice’s approach to innovation and sustainability. He has led a number of prestigious and multi award-winning projects including the load-bearing stone building at 15 Clerkenwell Close. His work encourages the use of non-conventional materials, from cast iron to cork and from inflatables to stone, to design low carbon and environmentally conscious structures.

Pierre Bidaud has been a stonemason for 30 years. For 12 years he has worked at the Stonemasonry Company with his team of dedicated stonemason and engineers, designing, developing new stone structures using techniques such as pretensioning, with discreet steel reinforcement, allowing columns and beams structures to be concrete free while still being load bearing. He helps lead the Stone Collective, a group of stone specialists dedicated to ensuring stone is recognised as the low-carbon building material for our time.