Earlier work in Belarus

The archive

Ten years of stone modelled on the wall

The company was founded in Belarus in early 2008 and worked there until 2018, from Brest. This is the archive of those years: facades, plinths, interiors, paving and small architecture in stone hand-sculpted from architectural concrete, together with training and trade fairs.

It is not a showcase of the largest jobs. It is the working record of where the method was built up, one wall, stair and entrance at a time, long before the scale of theme parks. Selected projects are shown below, one section for each kind of work.

Clients included a gas utility, bank branches, a state pharmacy chain, shopping centres, a kindergarten in Brest, rural guesthouses and many private clients.

This is an archive. Photographs come from the years 2008–2018 and some show work in progress; client names and addresses are deliberately left out.

Commercial · Brest

Shopping centre

Stone-effect finishes on the facade, plinth and interiors of a retail building in Brest: walls, columns, floors and stairs.

Inside, the work is mostly surfaces that people cross every day. Stairs, landings and halls are cast and stamped in dark, slate-like concrete, wall edges are clad in rough stone, and square columns in the glazed hall are wrapped in stone-effect panels.

Public buildings · Belarus

Pharmacy branches

Pharmacy facades and entrances: stone plinths and columns, steps and details around shopfronts. These were branches of a state pharmacy chain, busy buildings where the base takes snow, rain and constant foot traffic.

Two of these entrances are shown in detail on the pages about stone plinths and stone steps; the photographs here add the other branches and the surrounding details.

Commercial · Belarus

Petrol station shop

Facade and entrance portal in dark stacked stone: a clean, representative finish for the retail shop at a fuel station. The same dark stone runs through the plinth, the portal frame and the column bases, set against a bright yellow and green building so that the entrance reads from the road.

The portal and the steps were photographed through the seasons, from the first layers on the scaffolding to snow on the finished treads.

Public buildings · Belarus

Canteen and office building

A large project: facade cladding, plinths, ramps and steps in stamped concrete.

Warm red-brown tones run through everything at ground level: the plinth in a block pattern, the entrance ramps with their kerbs, steps with a textured tread, and the landings, all matched to the pale yellow walls and the red railings above them.

Hospitality · Belarus

Small hotel

The facade of a small hotel finished in hand-sculpted stone: walls, corners, window surrounds and the entrance. Here the stone is used sparingly. It rises from the plinth in irregular bands, climbs the corners and frames the windows, leaving the white plaster as a calm background.

Private houses · Belarus

House facades

Complete stone- and brick-effect facades sculpted directly on the wall, from the plinth to the window details. The house is first dressed in a single material, then colour is built up stone by stone, so that corners, jambs and sills look laid rather than applied.

Two full houses are documented on their own pages: a stone manor in Zhabinka and a rubble-stone cottage in Kobrin. The selection below shows other houses from the archive.

Plinths · Belarus

Plinths

House plinths in rubble and flagstone patterns: a durable, monolithic finish for the most exposed part of the facade. Here the base of the house is modelled in sand, ochre and rust tones against pale brick above, with basement windows set into the pattern.

More plinths, including the castle-style base of a private house and plinths of public buildings, are on the stone plinths page.

Architectural elements · Belarus

Columns, bay windows and details

Architectural elements: tree-trunk columns, stone-clad bay windows, entrances, steps and flower beds. A bay window clad in stacked stone becomes the focus of a plain rendered house, and porch columns modelled with bark texture turn a modest entrance into a feature.

The same material continues down into the details: stamped-concrete steps, low flower-bed walls, and window frames where irregular stone seems to grow up from the plinth.

Private houses · Belarus

Fences and stairs

House facades, fences, stairs and balustrades in hand-sculpted stone and brick: private projects from Belarus. Boundaries get the same care as the house. Fence panels are cast and coloured as stacked stone in violet-grey and brown, with carved top rails, and terraces are finished in stamped concrete with stone retaining walls.

Two short films walk along finished walls and fences.

Surfaces · Belarus

Floors, steps and paths

Stone-effect surfaces: floors, steps, paths and building perimeters. Steps, landings, perimeters and paths are made as a monolithic surface that does not crumble. Under load the material does not crack but slightly compresses, which extends its service life.

A polyurethane lacquer limits icing and slipping, and the surface is easy to repair. We can finish irregular shapes of any radius and slope, in many textures and colours: flagstone, cobble, cut slab, even pressed leaves and medallions.

Interiors · Belarus

Fireplaces, interiors and outdoor kitchens

Stone walls, fireplaces, stoves and outdoor kitchens, plus retaining walls and driveways. Under a timber roof, brick-and-stone ovens with arched bases and metal hoods; indoors, a stone feature wall behind the television or a column wrapped in stone before the fit-out begins.

The last two photographs show the other side of the same trade: stone-faced retaining walls at a driveway.

Gardens · Belarus

Barbecue areas and gazebos

Stone barbecues, fire pits and gazebos for gardens and leisure venues. The gazebos are the most playful part of the archive: posts and roots shaped as tree trunks around a stone oven, and fire bowls that look like single pieces of rock.

Utility buildings · Belarus

Outbuilding

A simple building transformed entirely with rubble-stone cladding. A plain gable-ended outbuilding with a few white-framed windows is dressed on every wall in rounded stones of grey, rust and violet, with a small bench by the door.

Small architecture · Belarus

Small architecture

Sculptural compositions for homes, gardens and rural guesthouses: any complexity and function, from the client's sketches or ours. Fountains shaped as old tree stumps, with an owl, a frog or a squirrel hidden in the bark; a wall waterfall indoors; a winter garden in imitation rock.

Public and commercial · Belarus

Complete building finishing

Public and commercial buildings finished in one technology: facades, plinths, steps, floors and paths. When one crew handles every surface, the stone texture of a plinth continues in the entrance steps, the ramp and the paving, and the building reads as a single design.

This is the largest set in the archive. Pictures shown elsewhere on this page belong to it as well; here are the buildings that did not fit into another category.

Trade fairs

2010–2011: exhibition stands in Brest

The “Your Home” fair took place on 6–8 October 2010 at the ice palace in Brest and drew many visitors interested in the technology. It brought us contacts and clients for almost a full year of work.

A young man with no experience approached us there. After training he mastered the technology, became a master within three months and later trained new specialists himself.

In 2011 we exhibited at the international building fair “Brest-Commonwealth” with a stand showing the stone texture with corner elements.

Training

Teaching the method on real sites

Hands-on training in sculpting stone from architectural concrete, delivered on real sites. The trade-fair story above is typical: a person with no experience, a few months of working beside the team, and a new master who then trains others.

In 2015 we took part in an artisans' festival in Brest, where seminars and workshops were part of the programme. Today the same teaching line continues as a specialist training offer.