A fresh expression of Stone Tapestry is returning to Surface Design Show in 2024.

Squire & Partners has been invited by collaborators Stone Federation for the fourth year running to design an explorative natural stone showcase, which sits at the centre of the show’s Stone Gallery. This exciting new take on the feature installation has been realised by the team at The Stonemasonry Company, in collaboration with Webb Yates Design Engineers.

Stone Tapestry: Beyond the Surface is designed to showcase the beauty, sustainability and versatility of natural stone found in the United Kingdom. It explores how a structural use of stone – alongside a design approach that embraces the natural range of tones and textures found in a quarry – can play a major part in delivering projects that far outperform the sustainability credentials of other materials.

Defined by the need to limit weight and be demountable, while celebrating the material’s potential, Beyond the Surface utilises often discarded pieces of stone, allowing them to work together in a skeletal, lightweight crafted framework, post-tensioned with steel. The selected stones celebrate the wonderfully wide range of colours, finishes and properties of British Stone. Both ancient and futuristic, and very energy efficient.

The fully interactive piece plays with scale, allowing the materials as well as the engineering and artisanal masonry to be imagined for both inside and out. The installation is a true meeting of tradition and technology; the craft of stonemasonry working in tandem with the latest in engineering software and research.

Stone Tapestry 2024 is created with British stones from Albion Stone, Britannicus Stone, Dunhouse Quarry, Hutton Stone and Tradstocks.