New Volumes^™

Millions of years in the making and excavated from a single quarry in limited quantities, Elba is a powerful raw material that commands respect.

Coveted for its cool grey tones and soft brown markings, this unique dolomite-based product offers a subtle, sophisticated colour palette. With low porosity, it is a beautiful, natural stone that is hard-wearing, long-lasting, resilient and distinctly easy to live with.

The origins of Elba can be traced back around 250 million years ago, to coral reef in a primordial ocean called Tethys. Dolomite-based stone typically forms at the bottom of a lake or large bodies of water. Through tectonic plate movement, the stone gets heated and compressed, along with layer upon layer of sediment. These combine to start to change the appearance of stone, creating twists in sediment lines that result in the distinct grain visible in every piece. While similar to the calcium carbonate found in marble, dolomite is interrupted with magnesium, creating a more durable compound. Thus making materials such as Elba, which are chemically more stable, generally harder and exhibit a more opaque lustre than most marbles.

Elba is sourced from a quarry in Greece that was founded in 1984 and is still owned and operated by the same family today. It was discovered serendipitously by the quarry’s founder, in an unexplored area. When excavation started, he was surprised to discover the unique colour of the deposits. It was not like anything the nearby quarries were producing. It was also significantly harder in comparison to the nearby marbles. This was a special dolomite, in terms of both colour and quality.

Initially the excavation technique was a traditional one, though over the years it has become more advanced. Nevertheless, production is maintained at a moderate rate, ensuring it’s never over-produced in order to maintain this raw material as one of rarity, to be treasured.

Throughout history, marble and stone have both been revered for their beauty and strength.

Forming over hundreds of millions of years through the most intense of geological processes, it is the oldest available material we can use as building blocks and to decorate our homes.

For thousands of years it has been a symbol of luxury and our dominance of the natural world. We use it in sculpture to immortalise figures, leaders and heroes, and in architecture to build monuments, shrines and pillars of grandeur. At home we walk on it, we prepare food on it and we bathe in it. Through great power from both man and machine, we excavate it and it enriches our personal and public realms.

Often named the tears of the stars, each vein, grain, stripe and cloud has significance and a beauty that feels random but instead its predetermined circumstance was decided long ago. Each intricate detail is never wrong or ugly, as it’s had such an incredible journey. We can arrogantly attempt to establish a modest hierarchy of beauty, however it is a petty gesture when considering the formation of the stone is so monumental in itself.

Like marble, Elba is a special material. Any dealings with it should be considered wisely, as its journey deserves nothing less. 

For our first endeavour, we chose seven other designers who would understand this. Designers whose previous work exhibited unique thinking with respect to form, process and material. Our brief to them was one of pure expression. 

In an exercise such as this, product function can have a lesser importance than form. We subscribe to the idea that people respond to form in an instinctual way to create emotional connections with the objects around them. With this in mind, when examining each design we would ask: does it deserve to be made? Is it asking or answering a question? Is it a new way of expressing an old idea? The succinct result is a collection of modern artifacts that are ready to be treasured over time.

With great pleasure, we present New Volumes, Collection 01 — Elba.

— Thomas Coward, Creative Director