Working with local stone

The quartzite of the Serra da Mantiqueira is not the polished stone of the kitchen-showroom industry. It is raw, irregular, and full of inclusions. It splits differently from one quarry face to the next. This is also what makes it useful.

On the Hotel Serra project we worked with a single family who has been extracting stone from a specific hillside for three generations. The cost per cubic metre was roughly half that of the same stone transported from the main quarries near Belo Horizonte. But more important was the accumulated knowledge: they understood the stone's character in a way that no specification document could capture.

The retaining walls are built entirely dry, without mortar. This is the traditional technique and the one the workers knew how to execute. It also means the walls breathe, allowing water to percolate through rather than building up hydrostatic pressure behind the face. After two years of the rainy season, the walls are in perfect condition.