Materials ·
The Quiet Materiality of Natural Stone
Why we specify honed, unfilled stone, and why we tell clients to expect it to change.
Stone is the oldest material we use and the one clients are most nervous about. It stains, it etches, it is never quite the colour of the sample. We think those are its best qualities.
Most of our projects use travertine or limestone, honed rather than polished and left unfilled where we can. The surface is softer to the eye and the hand, and the small cavities in travertine catch light in a way a filled slab never does.
We ask for full slabs to be laid out in the yard before anything is cut, and we choose the cuts with the client standing beside us. A worktop is a piece of a particular rock; it should look like one.
And we are honest about care. Stone in a kitchen will mark. Within a year or two the marks blend into a patina that, to our eyes, makes the room look lived in rather than worn.