From afar, limestone’s neutral colouring offers a consistent, homogenous surface appearance, a feeling of minimalist restraint. Yet on closer inspection, the material’s nuanced character is revealed with surface variations, subtle veining, and embedded fossils offering texture and rawness.
Limestone quarry in Portugal.
Having sourced limestone from quarries as far reaching as Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Iran, we are continually inspired by the materials’ varied densities, colour differences and levels of fossilisation. These unique characteristics lend purpose to each piece. While our work tends to favour warm, natural limestones with grey undertones, we often experiment with the stone’s surface finish to create unique interplays of shadow and light.
Such was the case at Red Hill House, where we combined varied limestone formats and finishes to enliven the home’s graphically simple form. Pale, gallery-like walls are offset by honed limestone floors, creating an atmosphere of calm minimalism. The limestone’s large tile format addresses the home’s generous scale, its gentle movement of green and grey veining animating the floor plane as one moves through the home.
Concept visualisation of limestone clad stair, balustrade and walls.
“Select walls are shrouded in sand-blasted limestone. The stone’s weaker, fossilised elements create a natural, pitted effect that offers enhanced texture. A bespoke lighting slip in the home’s limestone-lined bathrooms continues the home’s material narrative, appearing hewn from a solid limestone block.”
Phillip Mathieson
Gohera limestone is sandblasted on the fireplace and honed on the floor.
Each of these applications invite their own light qualities, giving luminosity to the home’s formal composition. In this project, and across our broader portfolio, limestone continually lends a feeling of solidity and permanence, while garnering added patina over time. Warm, restrained and ever-evolving, limestone reflects our profound respect for materiality in all its forms.
Dappled light washes sandblasted and exfoliated clad walls.
