London played host to the Federation’s second Stone in the City event of the month since its return earlier this year.
Held at the Thistle Euston Hotel the event gathered architects, stone consultants and natural stone industry professionals from across the country for a morning of seminars and networking.
The first session was presented by the esteemed architect Liam O’Connor and looked at one of Liam’s projects and Natural Stone Award winner, Bomber Command Memorial in London. This project garnered a huge amount of press attention due to the story behind it, and it was fascinating to hear about this high profile project from the architect’s perspective.
Liam was followed by Ian Major of StoneTrain who delivered a condensed version of the Federation’s flagship ‘Selecting the Correct Stone’ CPD, providing delegates with a fantastic overview of the steps in order to ensure correct material selection.
The coffee break provided delegates with a chance to network as well as take a look at the featured exhibition by members ACS Stainless and discuss their fixing systems.
After the break, Bernard Burns of Szerelmey and Chairman of the Federation’s Built Heritage Group spoke on Stone in Heritage and provided invaluable guidance on how to approach cleaning, restoring and repairing heritage properties.
The final session saw architect Graham Lee of Graham Lee Consultancy speak on stone from an architect’s perspective and the historic relationship between the two professions. This was a great opportunity for the architect present to hear from one of their own about the synergy between the stonemason and the architect.
After the final session, delegates were given the opportunity to ask the speakers any questions they might have. This prompted some lively discussion about topics including stone selection and the relationship between the architect and the stone supplier.
The event finished with a lunch that provided the delegates to network as well as to connect with the speakers and other stone professionals.
The Federation would like to thank all the speakers for their part in making the event such a resounding success.
