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Architects: AAU ANASTAS
- Area: 4 m²
- Year: 2019
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Photographs:Edmund Sumner
Text description provided by the architects. Born as a reaction to a systematic misuse of clad stone in Palestine, Stone matters is an experimentation-based research project examining the potential of including structural stone within the language of contemporary architecture and combining traditional craftsmanship with innovative construction techniques.
The architecture of Palestine combines disparate architectural elements brought by various civilizations with local elements found in-situ. In an attempt to blur the limits between local and global architecture, Stone matters takes the form of a series of real scale installations, academic articles and a worldwide online atlas of stone architectural elements.
Stone matters explores the qualities of architectural fundamental elements (including vaults, lintels, and columns) and finding novel ways of expressing each. It deliberately desacralizes the use of stone, often associated exclusively with noble constructions towards creating a vocabulary of stone use in contemporary architecture.
‘Qamt’, a circular lintel bench is the second experiment presenting systems of lintels inspired by stereotomy found in Jerusalem. It serves as a functional element as well as an illustrative architectural fundamental element. It is an effort to question the local and global exchange of techniques and trace unseen analogies between architectural forms across borders.