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Stone occupies an unusual place in architecture. It is among the oldest materials used to construct buildings, yet its role continues to shift as architects respond to new ways of living, changing technologies and growing attention to material reuse. The winners and finalists in the 14th A+Awards’ Architecture +Stone category — projects from different parts of the world— demonstrate just how varied that role can be.
What connects these designs is not a single approach to the material or specification, but the ways architects adapt it to different architectural contexts. In some, stone gives buildings their sense of weight and permanence; in others, its value lies in its texture, origin, or ability to be reused. Together, these A+Award-winning projects move across residential, workplace and cultural typologies, revealing how one material can take on very different meanings and functions depending on where and how it is used.
On a ridge in California’s Santa Lucia Preserve, Feldman Architecture found a way to give a Tuscan-inspired retreat the character of its rugged hillside setting. Instead of gathering the house into a single volume, the architects scattered it across four stone pavilions, tracing the contours of the narrow ridge and opening the spaces between them to the landscape.
Local St. Helena Cottage stone forms thick granite walls that anchor each pavilion to the ground, while openings cut into their mass pull the surrounding trees and distant valley into view. As paths pass between the buildings, the retreat gradually reveals itself through courtyards and shaded passages. Above the living pavilion, a tower rises into the treetops, while the stone below keeps the house closely tied to the hillside.
KPF turns an aging 1980s office building into a new gateway for London’s Culture Mile, opening its former private edge to the city. A new street and arcade lead through the site, while terraces step up the office floors toward a publicly accessible roof overlooking St. Paul’s Cathedral. At the heart of this transformation is Portland stone salvaged from the existing building and given a new place within its successor. Rather than being discarded when the old façade comes down, the material carries part of the building’s history forward, while reducing the need for newly quarried stone. Above, the roof terrace brings people back into the structure from another direction, turning an office redevelopment into a building with a more public life.
Southwand House takes its cues from the stone tower-houses of Messinia, translating their compact forms into a contemporary holiday retreat. Orthogonal volumes gather around a central spine, with locally quarried stone forming thick walls that give the house a sense of weight and permanence. As you move through the spaces, courtyards and sheltered passages open between the volumes, offering glimpses of the Ionian Sea before leading back into the house.
Stone stays at the heart of the experience, its rough texture and solidity grounding the architecture in the terrain while recalling the region’s long tradition of masonry. Above it, white concrete slabs and broad expanses of glass catch the Mediterranean light, opening the rooms to the landscape. The house unfolds through this contrast between the weight of stone and the openness of the sea.
Set beside a river on a lush suburban site, this Y-shaped home takes its character from the materials at its heart. Inspired by the client’s family history in the lumber industry, the house pairs warm white ash with dark slate, letting each material reveal something different as you move through the spaces.
The slate comes from a single regional quarry, but its story continues across the house: split into roof shingles, cleft for walls, cut into slabs, then crushed or gathered into gabions so little is left behind. Against this dark exterior, openings reveal a warm timber interior, framing carefully composed views of the landscape. The same stone that gives the house its dark outer shell also becomes part of its drainage and paths, turning one material into an entire landscape system.
Fonte d’Amore began with a memory: a wedding proposal at Rome’s Trevi Fountain, later joined by the couple’s fascination with Gaudí’s architecture in Barcelona. For MOFA Studio, those experiences became the starting point for transforming a small courtyard in their New Delhi home. At its center, a sculptural stone fountain recalls the Trevi, while arches rise through five stories, gradually giving way to the fluid curves of a cloud-like dome.
Stone carries this transformation, moving from the formal geometry of the base into hand-carved surfaces shaped through a dialogue between AI and traditional craftsmanship. Above, four oculi draw air through the courtyard while the fountain cools it, turning the sculptural space into part of the passive climate strategy. Here, computation generates possibilities while the stone retains the mark of the human hand.
The New World Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum begins with an idea of continuity, drawing together Xinjiang’s folk traditions with the larger cultural landscape of China. Its symmetrical plan gathers around a central lobby known as the “Crown of Intangible Heritage,” where the north and south wings meet beneath a crown-like roof. The architecture looks to the intimate fabric of folk settlements while taking its larger form from the surrounding mountains.
Off-white stone gives the building a quiet, enduring presence, recalling the weight and permanence of traditional architecture without reproducing it directly. Bronze-colored metal panels bring warmth to the pale exterior, while the interior follows the theme “Chinese Civilization, One Continuous Line.” In this setting, stone becomes part of the museum’s larger story of heritage, carrying ideas of permanence into a contemporary civic building.
UN PUENTE takes its name from the idea of a bridge, a theme that runs through the house as it reaches between forest and lake, family and guests, upper and lower levels. Faced with the challenge of a steeply sloping site, Paolini Arquitectos set the house across the terrain, with a bridge-like entrance extending toward the reservoir. Stone walls anchor the building to the hillside, their rough surfaces continuing from the exterior into the interiors, where warm timber softens their weight.
A curved timber walkway winds between the stone walls before arriving at the central stair, which descends beneath a skylight into the lower level. From above, the house appears to stretch across the site like a bridge, its stone edges tracing the landscape while the spaces between them open toward the water.
The 15th Architizer A+Awards has officially launched! Seize the lowest pricing of the season by entering before October 23rd, 2026. Learn more →
The post Not Set in Stone: What Is Masonry Doing in Architecture Right Now? appeared first on Journal.
Stone occupies an unusual place in architecture. It is among the oldest materials used to construct buildings, yet its role continues to shift as architects respond to new ways of living, changing technologies and growing attention to material reuse. The winners and finalists in the 14th A+Awards’ Architecture +Stone category — projects from different parts of the world— demonstrate just how varied that role can be.
What connects these designs is not a single approach to the material or specification, but the ways architects adapt it to different architectural contexts. In some, stone gives buildings their sense of weight and permanence; in others, its value lies in its texture, origin, or ability to be reused. Together, these A+Award-winning projects move across residential, workplace and cultural typologies, revealing how one material can take on very different meanings and functions depending on where and how it is used.
Stone Villa
By Feldman Architecture, Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Jury Winner, Architecture +Stone, 14th Architizer A+Awards
Local St. Helena Cottage stone forms thick granite walls that anchor each pavilion to the ground, while openings cut into their mass pull the surrounding trees and distant valley into view. As paths pass between the buildings, the retreat gradually reveals itself through courtyards and shaded passages. Above the living pavilion, a tower rises into the treetops, while the stone below keeps the house closely tied to the hillside.
Panorama St Paul’s
By KPF (Kohn Pedersen Fox), London, England
Popular Choice Winner, Architecture +Stone, 14th Architizer A+Awards
Southwand House
By K-Studio, Greece
Stone stays at the heart of the experience, its rough texture and solidity grounding the architecture in the terrain while recalling the region’s long tradition of masonry. Above it, white concrete slabs and broad expanses of glass catch the Mediterranean light, opening the rooms to the landscape. The house unfolds through this contrast between the weight of stone and the openness of the sea.
Lakeside Residence
By Disbrow Iannuzzi, Michigan
The slate comes from a single regional quarry, but its story continues across the house: split into roof shingles, cleft for walls, cut into slabs, then crushed or gathered into gabions so little is left behind. Against this dark exterior, openings reveal a warm timber interior, framing carefully composed views of the landscape. The same stone that gives the house its dark outer shell also becomes part of its drainage and paths, turning one material into an entire landscape system.
Fonte d’Amore
By MOFA Studio, Delhi Division, DL, India
Stone carries this transformation, moving from the formal geometry of the base into hand-carved surfaces shaped through a dialogue between AI and traditional craftsmanship. Above, four oculi draw air through the courtyard while the fountain cools it, turning the sculptural space into part of the passive climate strategy. Here, computation generates possibilities while the stone retains the mark of the human hand.
New World · Intangible Cultural Heritage Museum of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region
By Architectural Design and Research Institution of SCUT, Ürümqi, China
Off-white stone gives the building a quiet, enduring presence, recalling the weight and permanence of traditional architecture without reproducing it directly. Bronze-colored metal panels bring warmth to the pale exterior, while the interior follows the theme “Chinese Civilization, One Continuous Line.” In this setting, stone becomes part of the museum’s larger story of heritage, carrying ideas of permanence into a contemporary civic building.
UN PUENTE
By Paolini Arquitectos, Córdoba, Argentina
A curved timber walkway winds between the stone walls before arriving at the central stair, which descends beneath a skylight into the lower level. From above, the house appears to stretch across the site like a bridge, its stone edges tracing the landscape while the spaces between them open toward the water.
The 15th Architizer A+Awards has officially launched! Seize the lowest pricing of the season by entering before October 23rd, 2026. Learn more →
The post Not Set in Stone: What Is Masonry Doing in Architecture Right Now? appeared first on Journal.