ETHNOGRAPHY OF STONE. Gathering – Layering – Cementing

Abstract

Abstract This article draws on my ongoing doctoral research on stone and its renewed use as a self-supporting or load-bearing material in architecture today. To complement the existing literature on the subject, which is overwhelmingly quantitative in nature, it discusses the potential, as well as some of the difficulties, of the ethnographic approach I have adopted instead. Focusing on my fieldwork around the construction of a collective housing project in Plan-les-Ouates, Switzerland, one of the case studies in my thesis, it explores the challenges that working with this geo-sourced material poses for the professional practice of actors involved in its production. By taking into account the perspectives of multiple actors across multiple sites, including the stone as found, it aims to contribute to a broader understanding of what its structural use does, and could, imply for architecture.