It’s hard to explain how irrationally exuberant I am over the discovery of New World Stoneworks, which, well:
If you have ever walked along a rocky coastline or riverbed, you’ve seen how nature can sculpt stone with flowing water to expose its inner character. The New World Stoneworks process harnesses this force and channels that creative power into the hands of the architect or designer. Like every other material in a modern construction plan, it is now possible to detail each stone in CAD and achieve the artisan details of the past.
New World uses CAD, computer-controlled waterjet cutting, hand chiseled finishing, and just-in-time palletizing to transform stoneworking for the 21st century.
They repeatedly mention not just how fast it is to install their precision-fitted stone, but now it eliminates noise, dust, and jobsite waste. I guess it has its practical benefits, but it also sounds a little neat-freaky, frankly.
Anyway, when I watch them build a granite doghouse [!] in two hours, and when when I read things like this:
If you have a photograph of a stonework style or historic work you want to match, we simply scan the photo and replicate the look. We can even control the degree of surface weathering.
I start wondering about the artistic possibilities of New World’s technique.
Something about the ironic intersection of randomness and intention, like Rauschenberg’s identically painted drips in Factum I and Factum II. Or the Japanese construction workers demanding a precise, randomly generated placement guide for the faceted platinum Olafur Eliasson tiles going into their boss’s Tadao Ando house. Or Dan Colen’s brick wall, frankly. The mental jobsite still has some clutter, I guess.
New World Stoneworks [via nxtform, thanks paddy]
Previously: “The most believable stone veneers in the world”