About the event

This construction prototype challenges how modern buildings are made. Standing three storeys tall, the Stone Demonstrator shows stone’s potential as a contemporary low-carbon structural material.

This public installation, designed with architects Groupwork, sits on the Earls Court development site in west London and shows how stone could take the place of steel and concrete as a primary structural material - working as both a research tool and a public statement about more sustainable construction.

Nearly 40% of global carbon emissions come from the built environment, with about 11% tied to constructing new buildings. Natural stone offers a route to cut this sharply. Compared with a conventional reinforced concrete frame, the Stone Demonstrator drops embodied carbon by roughly 70%, and by around 90% when set against steel.

The project forms part of wider research into stone structures to help move their use back into everyday construction. The stone demonstrator’s structural approach has been developed for high-rise buildings in the UK and Europe, and the self-supporting stone façades, built to standard brick dimensions, can rise six storeys.

About the speaker

Liam Bryant, Associate Director - Webb Yates

In addition to his work on a diverse range of projects for Universities, museums and homes, Liam is part of Webb Yates Engineers’ stone design steering group, with experience across a number of typologies of structural stone, including staircases and post-tensioned stone beams, as well as the company’s computational design team, pushing to improve the use of digital tools and innovation throughout the practice.