Architects & Specifiers: A Stone Partnership

By Karen Pearse

In the stone sector – like any other industry – you’ll find companies that are simply commodity suppliers. Their mantra is to make the sale, but ex caveat emptor. So, the big question becomes, “Is your black granite really that color – or is it dyed?”
The stone industry is fragmented into thousands of independent businesses that often leads to conflicting and confusing information. It can be tedious for a designer or architect to sift through all available sales, marketing and promotional details, not to mention the technical data and materials.
The best stone sources are partners included in a project from the initial design phase through construction completion. Trusted industry consulting is earned over years through constant excellence in advising clients on technical details, aesthetics, performance, maintenance, budget and stone-product delivery.
An architect once told me he’d chosen a specific stone for a project, but his supplier informed him the stone was no longer available. The supplier’s explanation: The material was sourced from an island that had been overtaken by water.
This was amusing, since I knew the architect’s preferred stone derived from one particularly little-known quarry. Because the stone supplier wasn’t familiar with the source, he concocted a story.
Many owners and end users assume that architects are knowledgeable in every nuance, aspect and detail of the construction process. This includes site planning, effective structural design, construction methods, material and systems, budget and aesthetics, legal issues, mechanical necessities, electrical systems, environmental issues and safety regulations, as well as maintenance and cleaning procedures.
The architect’s responsibility is to produce original, one-of-a kind built environments. For the other stuff, it’s vital to develop a database of knowledgeable industry partners.
Stone knowledge varies depending on an individual’s specialization. Every company has its own focus that reflects on a firm’s knowledge of stone. The project involvement, breadth and professional experience also come into play.
Practical knowledge in the business comes from working with master stone professionals – from quarrying to fabrication to installation. Technical background, of course, is further enhanced by architectural and design experience. It’s very difficult for an architect to do all this alone.
To start, there are so many readily available natural stone classes and groups: granite, marble, serpentine, quartzite, limestone, sandstone, travertine, etc. Man-made marble or quartz-based agglomerates are also gaining popularity, making the job of specifying even more complicated.
Natural stone, in particular, is available in numerous finishes: polished, honed, sandblasted, bush-hammered, flamed (thermal), antiqued, tumbled and waterjet-cut. The same stone can look entirely different simply by specifying the way a block is cut; cutting stone parallel to the bed produces a fleuri cut, while cutting through the bed makes the veins appear in a vein cut.
Selection of stone also varies depending upon the project type, application or location. The stone color and range is also taken into consideration, along with the project’s time frame, budget and safety parameters. The increase in material choices and design possibilities, while broadening options for the project designer, also heightens the complexity of specifying the appropriate material.
Over the past three decades, technological developments in the international stone industry dramatically increased the use of building stone products. These developments resulted in rapid and extraordinary changes within the industry, including:
• Cladding with thin veneer stones;
• The ability to use much larger format stone tiles on both horizontal and vertical surfaces; and
• Spot-bonding techniques.
One of the most-powerful assets a stone provider can have is an in-house research division that stays at the forefront of new material, products and trends. More importantly, this gleaned knowledge must be processed for sharing with the company’s internal sales and support team with input from outside design professionals. Everyone must be willing to work together synergistically.
At Innovative, our educational division is called The Building Materials Learning CenterTM . We published the comprehensive interactive CD-ROM and course book, The Power of Stone; we also offer luncheon presentations and daytime/evening seminars hosted, for example, by top architectural firms and colleges such as the Pratt Institute. Innovative maintains a steady educational outreach mission to ensure proper stone and tile specification.
Box lunches are very effective and meaningful vehicles if professionals who participate can earn bona fide continuing educational credits! American Institute of Architects (AIA) members, as well as architects licensed in states with mandatory continuing education (MCE) requirements for re-licensure, are required to complete a minimum number of hours especially involving Health Safety and Welfare. Stone suppliers and manufacturers must participate in providing these valuable annual training requirements.
Generic and solid technical information is also available to the design professional by participating in numerous events organized by organizations like the AIA, the American Society of Interior Designers (ASID), the Building Stone Institute (BSI), the Construction Specifiers Institute (CSI), the Institute of Store Planners (ISP), the Marble Institute of America (MIA), the National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA) and the International Masonry Institute (IMI).
We also routinely donate natural stone slabs and dimensional stone material to the IMI installer training schools for hands-on educational purposes. The whole reason for this is that with more knowledge, more stone is specified and consumed.
An architect’s job is to deliver a finished project that serves the owner’s demanding requirements. Careful stone selection provides excellence in Service Life Cycle Cost – the amortized value for interior flooring materials and assemblies – when the initial installation expense of materials and installation are viewed in concert with operations and long-term maintenance (based on a 50-year time frame). Material sourcing and fabrication technology (such as CNC) exists to provide bulk, budget-conscious, custom-fabricated pieces to accommodate the client’s design requirements.
Floor safety regarding slip resistance (Coefficient of Friction – COF) is also a critical factor to the wallet of any building owner. Rapid installation materials allow a building to be ready for occupancy more quickly; selecting project-appropriate stone finishes results in minimal repairs, maintenance, aesthetic quality and durability.
A stone partner should be expected to supply project-specific stone suggestions and material samples, as well as technical and budgeting information. If necessary, they should be available to accompany the design professional to project meetings with the owner. A stone supplier should also have its own international inspectors to monitor range and quality of stone supplied.
In addition, stone suppliers must deliver material on time and undamaged; due to increased international security these days, delays are a common occurrence. Today, there’s an advantage in having a supplier that does project take-offs to ensure that enough material is on hand and offer fabrication and installation services for one-source responsibility.
Constant growth, education and investment in state-of-the art fabrication and installation equipment, along with good communication, must be present for a stone provider to be an extremely effective A & D partner.
Partnerships go both ways. When an architect or designer is comfortable that they have the right stone partner, it is important that they recognize that this company is providing “without cost or obligation” consultation, samples, educational, and technical data. In the early ‘80’s, Innovative was the first company to provide all these services directly to the architectural and design community through our Stone SpecifierTM.
I remember the first ad we put in an architectural magazine for Stone Specifier units. We received thousands of inquiries, because architects and designers were hungry for a stone company to provide these services; now, several companies provide such services to design professionals.
Through trusted industry consulting, a client can be provided with all needed services from a single source. In the end, it always saves frustration, time and money; there really is no better way to go.
Karen Pearse is founder and CEO of Innovative Stone in Hauppauge, N.Y.

This article first appeared in the February 2003 print edition of Stone Business. ©2003 Western Business Media Inc.