fig.1 _ expressed tensioning joints to rough cut stone beams and floor plates _ Oxfordshire
Premise. fig.2 _ Demonstrating tensioned stone frame to replace steel and concrete frames up to 80 storeys + stone bricks _ London. fig.3 _ 10 storey basalt frame _ London. fig.4 _ Italian gvmt research project _ reuse of stone tile industry waste

ARC3015YF (L0107) 
Instructor: Amin Taha

Premise
Construction accounts for roughly forty per cent of man-made atmospheric carbon. This studio proceeds
from a simple proposition: that the sector can be turned from the problem into part of the answer, from an
extractive, emitting industry into a sequestering one, and that the means to do so are neither speculative
nor exotic. They are stone and timber, the oldest structural materials we have, re-examined through
contemporary engineering, virtual modelling and honest carbon accounting.

The studio is taught jointly by an architect, a structural engineer and a master stonemason: the Gehry Chair
together with Steve Webb of Webb Yates Engineers and Pierre Bidaud of The Stonemasonry Company. That
structure is itself the first lesson. The prevailing model of design; architect first, engineer later, trades last,
produces buildings none of the parties would have chosen. When the engineer and the material expert are
present from the first sketch, structure, cost and embodied carbon are designed rather than inherited, and
the outcome exceeds what any of the three disciplines could reach alone.

Argument
Structural stone can replace steel, concrete and fired clay brick, acting as structure and finish in one, at
comparable or lower cost and at a fraction of the embodied carbon, 99% lower than steel, 98% lower than
fired-clay brick and 80% lower than reinforced concrete. Its repertoire is broad: stacked stone on stone,
post-and-beam, arch and vault, through to ambitious stereotomy derived with parametric tools. It applies
across scales, houses, mid-rise, tall buildings. Combined with timber, whose growth sequesters carbon,
stone construction can deliver genuinely carbon-negative buildings. The studio tests this argument through
design, not assertion: students will develop projects in which these materials are interrogated for their
structural logic, buildability, cost and measured carbon, and will be expected to defend their numbers as
rigorously as their drawings.

Structure of teaching
Amin, Steve and Pierre will visit fortnightly for in-person teaching, arriving at the studio Wednesday
afternoons, spending all day Thursday with students before returning to the UK. Some visits, such as
mid and end of semester reviews may be extended. The week between will have on-line tutorials
beginning morning Canadian EST/late afternoon UK GMT. Design work is supported by a seminar series
covering carbon counting of materials in design; structural principles of masonry and timber, from
empirical rules of thumb to computational analysis; and the practicalities of quarrying, cutting, transport
and assembly. Site visits take students to quarries, stonemasons' workshops, and suppliers and built
examples of mass timber and stone hybrid structures. During the October reading week, the studio will
travel to the United Kingdom to visit working quarries and completed structural stone buildings in and
outside London, meeting engineers, masons and architects who have delivered them.

Outcome
The ambition is not to produce disciples of a style. It is to leave each student equipped with the easy-to-use
fundamentals, the spans, sizes, costs and carbon figures of stone and timber, so that they can achieve
carbon-negative outcomes developed in their own voice, and carry into practice the habit of designing with
engineers and makers from the outset of their practice. Students will leave able to answer, with confidence
and evidence, the question every client, consultant and planning approval committee will increasingly ask:
why is this building not made of stone?