Offices of architects and interior designers often contain dusty alcoves, cupboards, bins and boxes that house samples of stone and tiles from helpful suppliers. When fashions in stone change or office IT persons demand space for ever more gigabyte hard-drives and icloud nebulisers, these samples may be cleverly recycled into crazy paving or rustic Gaudi- inspired barbeques at beach houses on the Mornington Peninsula, corrugated retreats in Kangaroo Valley and their equivalents in other places. This writer has been particularly impressed by the stone decoration, clearly influenced by Munch and Mondrian, on a multi- tiered domed pizza oven and shawarma rotisserie enclosure, at a Mount Hotham ski-lodge, that includes small squares, rectangles and trapezoidal tiles of almost all varieties of stone known to modern geology…but I digress. Read more – by Dr Dripstone

For centuries stone has been used as a robust building material that has numerous applications in public buildings and private residences. By now we are all familiar with use of stone on benchtops and facades, in banks and hotel lobbies, and as external paving around pools and entertainment areas. Today’s leading designers and adventurous stonemasons and landscapers are busily creating new concepts in stone. Read more…

By 1890 four of Australia’s self-governing colonies (New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania) had founded universities to meet the educational needs of their burgeoning settler communities — the social elite in particular. The more isolated states of Queensland and Western Australia did likewise in the post-Federation era. Read more …

The restoration of the Vittorio Emanuele II arcade floors required high-level craftsmanship and high- tech products and methods. Mapei contributed to various stages of the project, and helped to enliven an historic location of cultural and emotional importance to the people of Milan. Read more…