Andreas and Naomi Kunert, co-founders of Ancient Art of Stone, know they don’t easily fit into one category. Together they create one-of-a-kind art installations using natural stone, crystals, and bronze. 

“We’re not stonemasons, we’re not necessarily sculptors, and we’re not mosaicists. Yet we use all of their skill sets,” Andreas says. 

Andreas and Naomi are artists, first and foremost. It’s not unusual for their art pieces to be 25’ tall. An upcoming project will include a 900-foot mosaic wall, with 20 feet surrounding it and large doorways with 350 ton standing stones that one can walk through. 

“From a megalithic point of view, it’s very moving and very to the point,” Andreas adds. 

Listening to clients and to the stone

Their clients don’t always know what they’re looking for at first. While this approach can be challenging for some people, for artists like Naomi and Andreas, it’s an opportunity to develop a design that is 100% personalized for their clients.

Their most recent client approached them to design a piece to add to their home, which was on 40 acres of land. They were referred by their landscape architect to create a focal point at a roundabout leading up to their home down the long driveway. When they first met with the client, it was clear the client didn’t have a design in mind. In fact, the client had no idea what to suggest; no idea of height, scale, or colors. So Naomi and Andreas came back to their studio and leaned into their process by channeling who they met and hearing what was shared.

“What did they tell us about their life? What was important to them?” Naomi asks. 

The discussion moved from what they felt to what might be important. Family and community seemed important. What Andreas noticed from their initial meeting was the couple was the nucleus of a larger family and they cared about the people in their community. 

“We developed this design of a taller stone standing together, which represents them, husband and wife, and then a sphere, emerging from the two stones, which represents this family and this caring community,” Andreas says.  

When presented with the design, the client loved it without any edits. 

Choosing the right stones

Years of experience have taught Naomi and Andreas what’s possible and working with talented engineers has allowed them to create award-worthy projects for their residential and commercial clients. 

The design is one part of the equation. Another is finding the right stones for each project. Those stones come from a variety of places. While they source some stones in their travels, some come directly from the client. In one instance, Naomi recalls a client whose father collected arrowheads that he found on his land. Those pieces were incorporated into a fireplace design as a way to honor their father. Those types of scenarios aren’t uncommon. 

“I think it does depend also on the client, and what their needs are as part of that listening and as part of my interest in health and healing,” Naomi says. “So through that, listening and getting to know them, there are certain stones that will kind of come more forward in my mind.”

Finding connections

Connections to the ancient art of natural stone used in projects are important to Andreas and Naomi. When it comes to the philosophy of their work, Naomi says it’s wise to look at the ancient ways natural stone has been part of all of creation. For Andreas, whatever they build, they build it with longevity in mind and what they create will outlast our generation and generations to come. 

Commissioned designs are completed in their studio in Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island and then shipped to the client’s location. It’s not uncommon for a client to become emotionally moved once they see a piece in real life. That’s when Naomi knows the spirit of the stone is speaking to them. Once they’re in front of the artwork, and allow the piece to speak to them, it moves them in a way that cannot be explained.

One project, two minds

Clients love getting the opportunity to work with both Andreas and Naomi. “I think that’s very unique to us, working together as a couple,” Andreas says. “Naomi has an amazing ability to tune into people. When we meet a new client, she can really zero in on who they are and ask them things that stop them in their tracks, makes them think. And ultimately, when the artwork is produced, and it happens every time, they’re very moved; that this is very specific to them. And this pretty much Naomi initially tuning into them. And it is the two of us, that’s really important.”

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An earlier version of this article appeared in the Spring 2022 edition of Building Stone Magazine. Photos appear courtesy of PICCO Group.  

A stair project is typically all in a day’s work for an engineer, but what PICCO Group put together for a Toronto homeowner counters logic and the perceived limitations of natural stone.  

The home in question, nestled a few meters down a ravine and surrounded by dense forest in an exclusive neighborhood, was being renovated by Toronto contractor Clemmensen Builders. Sophisticated and modern, the multi-level home with a flat green roof needed a staircase worthy of its simple, elegant geometry.

Clemmensen Builders sought to incorporate stone into the feature stair that would run from the lower level to the main kitchen level. The original solution, developed by architect Peter Clewes of architectsAlliance in Toronto, would be stone “plank” treads cantilevered from an adjacent foundation wall. But that would “create more complexity, challenges, and issues by disturbing the existing old wall, which was thick and made of rubble stone,” says Karl Doucas, principal of the structural engineers PICCO Group, called in to work on the project.

With the intent to fit the home’s contemporary style, Clewes designed the first iteration of the stair with a zig-zag profile. “We wanted to 100 percent respect that design intent but alleviate the structural approach they’d been considering. We envisioned a post-tension stair where the tensioning would be done after the installation. It would be a self-supported stair that wouldn’t rely on the existing structure to support it,” Doucas says. “Although what we proposed was a complicated structure, it would simplify construction and be less disruptive.”

It took a leap of faith on everyone’s part to agree to what eventually would be a five-ton floating stone staircase.

Sourcing and Fabricating  

The kitchen, at the top of the soon-to-be showpiece staircase, had basalt flooring. PICCO Group looked locally for stone that would match the kitchen floor but were unsuccessful. “Generally,” Doucas says, “with flooring tile it’s slab or tile material. The stair is cubic material. Although the source may be the same, the procurement process is different.”

Doucas attended a building show while sourcing the basalt, where he met Chinese suppliers who might have what he was looking for. “Basalt is a common material in China but comes from only a few quarries that are under government control,” he says. Doucas decided to go directly to the source in China and began making phone calls to find a quarry/fabricator that could secure enough of the specific material, black basalt G684. He landed on Gonmar Trading Company in Xiamen, China.

“They walked us through the procurement process. We provided detailing of the stair and the quantities we needed as well as shop drawings, which they reviewed carefully,” Doucas says. While Gonmar committed to the project, Doucas admits he was still nervous. “Saying and doing are two different things.” After the initial mock-up and review of the first few treads, Doucas says PICCO Group was more comfortable with their choice. Then, the company air freighted material samples to PICCO Group’s Concord, ON office for inspection and material acceptance before work began. During the process there were a lot of virtual meetings and calls.

Aside from matching the kitchen flooring, PICCO Group also chose basalt because of its strength and quality, Doucas says. “In a staircase like this so much stress goes into the material. We needed to make sure the material would be appropriate for the function. But there are tradeoffs. Being a strong material makes it more difficult to fabricate. You need the right fabricator to do this.” Gonmar sent “small but specifically dimensioned stone to conduct ASTM tests domestically.”

Gonmar quarried the blocks from its own mountain quarries in Fujian and processed and cut them to the size needed. They flamed the basalt, heating the stone to a high temperature with a torch then quickly cooling it with water. Small bits of stone pop off the surface, giving it a jagged edge. Then they wire brush it to wear down the sharp edges. The stone has a subtle rough dimpled surface and is naturally non-slip.

The stones needed to be keyed, stepped, and notched to fit into each other. Each step also had to have three holes through which tension cables would run. The holes had to line up perfectly. “That was a key consideration,” Doucas says. “Would the fabricator have the capability of cutting the stone to our specific requirements and be able to do the coring?” Because the stones would be connected along a tension wire as if they were giant beads on a string, “even subtle misalignment of these holes would have presented risks of cable kinks and increased cable stresses.”   

PICCO Group worked closely with Gonmar via telephone, virtual meetings, and video exchanges in addition to quality control reviews by PICCO’s sourcing representative in the region to do dry laying and stone mock-ups. “The precision of drilled holes within tight tolerances through consecutive treads proved more difficult than we expected,” Doucas admits, but in the end, quality control at the Chinese factory showed fabrication and craftsmanship created near-perfect hole alignment.  

Once this almost nine-month process was complete, the stairs traveled for six weeks by boat to Vancouver and then by truck to Toronto.

Assembly Required  

Five pallets of stone were delivered to the site. Small booms craned the stones from the trucks to the pool deck on the home’s kitchen level. Master masons Precision Stone, from Westbury, New York, were tasked with erecting the staircase to exact specifications. Masons wrapped the heavy stones in chain falls (hoists) and dollied them into the house.  

At the top and bottom of the staircase, masons installed robust and heavy stainless-steel plates. On the bottom level, the plate serves as a stop to all the weight and load of the stair above it and was anchored with 12 bolts to an existing lower-level concrete slab that required the addition of a reinforced stair foundation pad.

They then set up a wood “crib” of scaffolding to mimic the final design and used a pulley system to lower each basalt step into place. Masons placed each block of basalt stair in its appropriate spot on the wood crib. They built the staircase from the bottom level up. 

The 19 steps, each weighing 550 pounds, are made up of ten-inch treads and 6 3/16-inch risers. Each step also has three one-inch holes bored through its middle (to house the tension cable) and one through its side (for the handrail connector).

As each block of basalt stair was set in place, masons fed the three 1/2”-steel tension cables through matching holes in the treads consecutively. Pulling wire became more difficult as each tread was placed upon the one below. It took about four days to erect the treads.

“Once you get to the top, you essentially tie off the bottom with a nut and cut off the excess cable. You pull from the cable at the very top to create the tension,” Doucas says.  

There were still a few critical finishing steps. They pumped Hi-flow, quick curing grout, into each cable chase and then sealed each outlet. The grout took a week to consolidate. Then they could remove the temporary wood crib and grout the joints between riser and tread.

The final critical moment for Doucas came when they piled the steps with CMU blocks to simulate the load. “It’s impressive to see all those blocks on there and the stair is really floating. You stand underneath it and say, ‘I hope this thing holds.’ But we had confidence this would work. Post tension stone has been done for hundreds of years in many applications.”  

Once the stair was complete, they incorporated the glass rail system. “We asked the test lab to further confirm the stone material capacity for the type of railing anchor installation specified,” Doucas says. The masons installed and epoxied a stainless-steel threaded rod into the side of each stone step. The design called for a two-pinned look on every tread. The pin goes from the step through the glass, and a decorative nut finishes it off. “It was important to be precise as the glass guard holes were pre-drilled. We had to make sure the final fit was as you see it.”

There is no hiding the “wow” factor of this staircase. “It just wouldn’t have been as impressive in wood,” Doucas says. Its sheer weight and size convey the difficulty in fabrication and engineering. And, he adds, “If you want to evoke a sense of authenticity and communicate durability and longevity there’s no alternative to natural stone. It’s historical, timeless.”

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Natural stone is often chosen for residential and commercial work because of its beauty and versatility.  It’s also really nuanced, according to Roger P. Jackson, FAIA, LEED AP, a senior principal and past president of FFKR Architects, a Salt Lake City, Utah-based full-service architecture firm that serves clients primarily in its headquarter city and Scottsdale, Arizona.

Jackson mostly uses granite for his architectural projects, although he’s also worked with limestone. He is drawn to the beauty of natural stone and believes that its beauty goes beyond aesthetics. “Natural stone feels more durable,” Jackson says. “It has a character of strength, stability, durability, and mobility.”

While other materials may be durable, Jackson notes that natural stone in particular has history, character, and feels good to the touch. It can be carved, and texture can be added to many types of stone, adding another level of interest. Texture is often something he’s seeking when designing buildings.

Jackson credits his clients who understand and appreciate the strength and beauty of natural stone and are willing to invest in it. As a result, he’s been able to incorporate some truly remarkable natural stone into his projects.

Why temples and religious institutions request natural stone

FFKR Architects created an entire division within their firm to manage their work with specialized buildings such as religious institutions. The firm often works on temple buildings and special projects for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and these properties often have unique complexities. While their work in this space began more than three decades ago with the upgrade and extensive remodel work on the Hotel Utah Building when it was converted into the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, its architects have since designed new temples in cities across the United States and completed remodeling projects on historic church buildings including temples and the Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City.

Jackson is one of the architects who directs the Religious Studio. According to Jackson, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints likes to build their buildings out of noble and enduring materials that truly stand the test of time. “They want to build out of long term materials,” he adds, noting they are looking at investments in their buildings that can last 1,000 years. Interiors can be more flexible so they can be remodeled as necessary, but the exteriors are requested to be noble, rich, and beautiful.

Natural stone is often chosen for these reasons.

Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple: Choosing the right stone for the project

One of Jackson’s most recent projects was the Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple, which features Deer Isle granite from a quarry in Maine. “It’s this beautiful, kind of medium gray stone that has a little bit of a lavender cast to it,” he explains. “It looks beautiful when it’s dry. It looks beautiful when it’s wet. It’s one of my  favorite stones because it’s really quite unique.”

Many buildings throughout the East Coast are built using this particular stone. There were many reasons why this stone stood out for him and his team to use for this project.

First, many of the stone buildings in Philadelphia feature a grayish granite. Right across the street is the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, which Jackson describes as a fabulous and beautiful building but kind of a brownstone, which is more of a sandstone or a rusty chocolate rich brown. By choosing Deer Isle granite, the Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple would match more of the buildings in town and not compete with or match the Catholic cathedral across the street.

Adjacent to the temple are two historic Renaissance Revival icons – the Philadelphia Free Library and the Family Courts Building. The temple is a wonderful addition to the historic Logan Square – one of the five original squares planned for Philadelphia by William Penn.

Secondly and importantly, Deer Isle granite passed the technical and compression testing that would allow it to hold up for centuries to come with flying colors. Some of the technical testing it underwent, according to Jackson, focused on its strength. “How strong is the stone, how much does it weigh when it’s wet, and how saturated can it get? What is its freeze thaw? You run it through, you soak it, freeze it hard, thaw it out, soak it, freeze it,” and they’d repeat the cycle over the course of months specified by the testing requirements.

Finally, the building is clad in cut natural stone and highly detailed in the Neoclassical revival style of American Georgian architecture. The granite was flexible to be carved and textured, even if it wouldn’t be as visible from 200 feet above ground.

“One common cost-cutting feature is the higher up you get, the more dumbed down the details and the carvings,” Jackson says when it comes to building with natural stone. “We did not do that. We knew people would be looking at this building up close.”

Jackson says the Philadelphia Pennsylvania Temple is a spectacular building in the city and one of his favorite projects.

Natural stone has timeless character

Jackson loves using natural stone for projects and there is another type of stone he’s hoping to be able to use for a project soon: Moleanos, a Portuguese limestone that he says features a beautiful creamy color: “Orange and creamy as opposed to yellow.”

Until then, he’ll continue to reach for the best natural stone for each project because he insists stone has timeless character that never goes out of style. He points to most ancient buildings that still stand tall today because they were built with stone.

“Natural stone has this timeless look whether you carve it, shape it to match a historic classical precedent, or you cut big fat slabs and build with big pieces,” he says.

He looks at the some of the buildings being built today that are more modern or contemporary and while he admits he’s more of a classical and traditional architect, architects and project managers are drawn to natural stone for similar reasons: they want that richness of color and a material with natural character and the timelessness that natural stone provides.

“Natural stone is not going to go away until you carry it away,” Jackson says.

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An earlier version of this article appeared in the Spring 2022 edition of Building Stone Magazine. Photos appear courtesy of Jantile Specialties LLC.

Occupying almost an entire city block in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn is the NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital Center for Community Health. The new 400,000-square-foot building, which took the last decade to construct, was designed using a variety of sustainable materials, most notably the Calacatta Caldia marble that adorns the walls, reception desk, kiosks, café counter, and credenza in the main lobby.

Upon entering the lobby, guests are greeted by an 18-foot-tall feature wall, created using honeycomb-backed Calacatta Caldia panels. Custom cut into different sizes, the panels are installed in an overlapping staggered pattern, offering a contemporary aesthetic in a classic material. Because the wall is positioned like a corner, with the unique design wrapping around one side to the other, it is visible from all parts of the lobby, serving as the architectural focal point.

“We developed several different schemes and looked at a variety of different materials [for the feature wall], including large-format tile, mosaic tile, wood, glass, and backlit glass, and we proposed one in stone,” said Steven Wright, Associate Principal at Perkins Eastman Architects in New York, NY. “One of the clients’ requirements was that there shouldn’t be any horizontal shelves for dust to collect on because it’s an infection control issue. Our team, which included Senior Associate, Rico Stanlay, came up with the design for the stone wall. We were all in agreement that this design warranted special treatment and stone would be that material.”

The feature wall consists of 106 custom-made Calacatta Caldia marble panels assembled into six tiers, each partially cascading over the panel beneath it.

“Because the stone panels are three-dimensional, we had to get the grain to work around all the corners so when they were laid out, the grain would wrap all the exposed corners to make it look like massive chunks of stone,” Wright explained. “We were not consciously trying to mimic the look of a stone quarry, but there is a strong affinity between the different graining patterns and those square cuts.”

To harmonize with the wall’s design intent, the 20-foot-long, angular reception desk utilizes the Calacatta Caldia in a 2-cm-thick format. Adjacent to the wall and reception desk are two check-in kiosks and a credenza, which were also crafted from the 2-cm Italian marble.

Around 3,000 square feet of the stone was used for these elements, which was supplied by Marmi e Graniti d’Italia (MGI) in Massa, Tuscany.

Sourcing a prestigious stone

The team at Perkins Eastman collaborated with the client and stone contractor, Jantile Specialties, who helped procure the Calacatta Caldia. “The client purchased this specific block for another project and since it was not utilized for that site, the client wanted to incorporate it into NewYork-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital,” said Jennifer Coyne, project manager at Jantile Specialties in Armonk, NY.

Calacatta Caldia is a very prestigious material, which is extracted in the MGI-owned Rocchetta quarry in the Apuan Alps, one of the most renowned marble sources in the world.

“There is something special about the Apuan Alps, the ‘moon mountains.’ In this area, the extraction of ornamental stones has a centuries-old history, with the production of a great variety of marble that is unmatched elsewhere,” said Nicoletta Caruso, COO of MGI. “Apuan Caldia stands out for its value and interest, a contemporary material of excellence in the range of ‘whites.’ It is extracted in the Rocchetta area, located about 10 kilometers from the town of Massa in the province of Massa Carrara, from which the quarry takes its name.”

Excavation—at almost 3,000 feet above sea level—evolves on three fronts, in an environment designed by the unprecedented vertical and horizontal geometries of the marble bench walls at the Rochetta quarry.

Although a honed finish was applied to the Calacatta Caldia panels used for the project, the material sparkles when the light hits it, especially in the lobby where daylight is abundant.

Crafting the feature wall

After a handful of trips to MGI’s facility in Italy, the Calacatta Caldia marble was carefully hand selected and purchased before being shipped back to the United States. “There was a total of five visits to the factory throughout this project to ensure quality and consistency in material,” Coyne said.

“Working with natural stone, especially with a material like this, you start to cut through a block, and as you go from one side to the other, you often get surprises,” Wright added. “You don’t know what it’s going to be until you cut it open, so we had to scramble a bit in order to select the right pieces for the right locations.”

Of the five visits made to MGI, the final visit was for a dry lay approval. The teams at Jantile and Perkins Eastman, as well as the client and its design team, were all present for the dry lay of the feature wall to ensure color consistency and veining. “We needed to make sure they were wrapping the corners that we wanted and that the whole thing felt balanced, with the grain running in consistent patterns,” Wright said. “They laid the two walls out on the floor next to each other and I got up on one of the lifts to look down and make sure everything was flowing properly.”

Since the feature wall is composed of 106 different-sized pieces, with no two panels measuring the same, Wright and his team devised a special numbering system for fabrication and installation. Perkins Eastman provided templates for use in laying out the stone on the actual slabs. “Everything was labeled, boxed, and shipped like a jigsaw puzzle,” Wright explained. “We developed a system where each of the pieces was numbered in rows. Then, working from one side and then around the corner on the other elevation as well. Each piece was unique. We developed the geometry then gave it to Jantile to complete the shop drawings and fabrication.”

Although Wright has completed similar wall designs for other projects, this was “unique in every way.” The owner had high expectations, and “we all wanted to assure that this came out as envisioned,” he said. “The hospital was very concerned about this wall, especially since a few pieces of the shipment included for the reception desk were broken and we had to scramble to reselect some pieces and recalibrate the overall composition.”

An intricate installation

Once all pieces arrived in the United States, strategic fabrication and assembly were required to execute the feature wall as it was designed. “Putting together this wall, which is about 1,000 square feet of stone, wasn’t straightforward,” Wright said. “It took a lot of effort from a number of people all working together to get it right.”

Each panel had its own individual clipping system of varying lengths, which was integral to achieving the overall design. “The clips were all custom fabricated,” Wright said. “Each one had to be a precise size. Each piece of stone had at least two clips, some had more. You could imagine how difficult it was to put together.”

It was imperative every individual panel be placed in the precise location, according to Coyne. “In order to achieve the wall’s dimension, six custom J anchors were made in lengths varying from 1 to 6 inches to create the final ‘push/pull effect,’” she explained of the installation process, which allowed installers to hang the panels like picture frames. “A specific drawing was created to coordinate all anchor locations on both the substrate and the stone panels, guaranteeing all would align during the installation process.

“For the first course, the panels were either epoxied directly to the substrate or hung on one of the project’s shorter anchors,” Coyne shared. “The anchors in the second course were slightly longer than those used in the first course and the process continued up the wall. To alleviate the weight of the stone panels on the anchors, extra layers of plywood were added to the substrate for the third through sixth courses. This somewhat mirrored the ‘stepping’ effect seen in the stone and allowed the stone panel weight to be more evenly distributed across the wall.”

It took approximately eight months for complete fabrication of the feature wall, with an additional four weeks for drawing approvals and four weeks for onsite installation. “An initial crew of two was used to uncrate and lay out all materials. Once the team started installation and got into a rhythm, a second crew of two was added,” Coyne said. “The process was rather slow, as the panels fit like keys and required a specific order of installation. Each panel could only be installed after a specific panel before it. If one panel was installed even slightly out of place or out of level, it would have an impact on the panel that followed thereafter and thus impacting the entire wall.”

Coyne and Wright both agreed that the feature wall required extra thought and focus, as it was the most intricate aspect of the entire project. “All in all, I think it was a really good team effort from Jantile, the construction manager, the owner and their interiors department/design team,” Wright said.

While the feature wall was completely fabricated in Italy, with onsite modifications in the United States, the marble slabs used for the reception desk, kiosks, credenza, café, and other elements throughout the hospital were shipped directly to Jantile’s facility in Armonk, New York, where they were fabricated and dry laid before being transported to the hospital for final finishes and installation.

“We also designed the adjacent café, which features the same Caldia marble on the counter, as well as a small area in the Cancer Center on the sixth floor,” Wright said. “There’s something really nice about looking at natural stone opposed to other materials. It feels nicer and has a high visual interest.”

With COVID-19 delays and other supply chain issues, the entire hospital took around 10 years to complete, with most of the hands-on work completed in the last five years. “I think the building fits into its neighborhood as well as any building of this size could,” Wright said. “The experience of coming into the lobby – a very calm space – really helps patients feel welcomed and appreciated. I think it’s an uplifting space without being overwhelming. The stone really helps to ground that feeling of being the center of the experience.”

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