# London Completes World’s First High-Rise Supported by Stone > Source: https://positivity.org/good-news/london-completes-worlds-first-high-rise-supported-by-stone ## That’s exactly what just happened in London. Up in north London, architects and engineers recently wrapped up Petra Heights — a 10-storey residential building on Finchley Road, supported by an exoskeleton made entirely of stone. Designed by architecture firm Groupwork and structural engineers Webb Yates, Petra Heights claims the title of the world’s first high-rise structurally supported by an unreinforced stone exoskeleton. > It’s not just a façade. Here, the stone actually holds up the building. It takes the weight. It stands strong against the wind. It even serves as the finished exterior — no extra cladding required. Petra Heights blends ancient material with cutting-edge design, showing that building greener, lower-carbon structures might start with rethinking what we build with in the first place. ## A 10-storey building, standing on stone Petra Heights stands at 317 Finchley Road, north London. The project is made up of three separate but connected blocks, ranging from six to ten storeys. They hold 22 apartments above some ground-floor shops and workspaces. What hits you first is the exposed stone frame, right out front for all to see. Instead of tucking the structural skeleton away behind the walls, Groupwork and Webb Yates put it on the outside. It’s a real exoskeleton, made from hundreds of stone columns and beams. Webb Yates counted 596 stone columns and beams in the design and around 725 tonnes of Norwegian Larvik granite went into the development. Some reports tally over 1,000 tonnes once you add up all the volcanic rock in the project. The tallest block? Ten storeys. What really sets Petra Heights apart is that it doesn’t depend on the usual concrete core or steel reinforcement you’d find in buildings this tall. > That’s a big deal. ## Stone isn’t just for looks here Stone’s been a mainstay in construction for thousands of years. Ancient bridges, cathedrals, temples — all proof that stone lasts. But most modern high-rises rely on steel and reinforced concrete. They're stronger for their weight and work better for complicated designs. Petra Heights challenges that. Can natural stone itself support a modern building? Turns out, it can — at least here. The stone exoskeleton acts as a huge external frame. Its columns and beams bear the building’s weight upward and help with wind loads too. Stone isn’t just window dressing on this project. It does the job steel or concrete usually would. Webb Yates calls Petra Heights a 10-storey, self-finished stone building — no stainless steel reinforcement, no secondary structure propping anything up. > That’s not how we usually build today. ## Why put the structure outside? Architectural exoskeletons aren’t brand new, but using substantial blocks of natural stone for the primary support frame? That’s rare. For this project, putting the structural skeleton outside did more than just look dramatic. It left the interiors open, with fewer big columns or chunky concrete cores in the way. The floors connect straight onto the stonework. They used cross-laminated timber (CLT) for the floors, adding another eco-friendly material to the mix. So, you’ve got stone for strength, timber for the floors, and glass to let the light in. And none of the stone gets hidden behind an extra layer of cladding. It’s a new way to put a building together. ## Engineering every single stone This isn’t as simple as stacking a pile of rocks. Every stone had to be measured, cut, and placed just so. Size matters. Weight matters. The way each piece handles force matters. How everything joins together matters even more. In the end, the team chose Larvikite granite from Norway, sourced from Lundhs. They picked it for its strength and stability. Pieces were precision-cut before heading to London. Some are several meters long. They stitched everything together with engineered connections — steel dowels, brackets, a bit of modern magic. > So, this is not old-school stone masonry. Think precision engineering with ancient materials. ## Merging the old with cutting-edge tech That’s the fun of this project: taking an ancient material and applying all the latest know-how. Stone is as old as civilization itself. Now, though, computers can analyze how every piece fits together and handles stress. Machines can cut stone with pinpoint precision. Tests tell us how stone reacts to heat, weight, and time. > What’s ancient is the material; the process is high-tech. ## Thinking about carbon Why is anyone paying attention to Petra Heights? In a word: carbon. Construction eats up staggering quantities of resources. Steel and concrete have revolutionized buildings, but making them burns through a ton of energy and releases a pile of CO2. Stone isn’t carbon-neutral, not by itself. It needs to be quarried, shaped, shipped—in this case from Norway to London. But the team’s numbers show a big difference: they say the stone structure generates about 80% less embodied carbon than a steel frame clad in stone, and 55% less than reinforced concrete clad in stone. These aren’t blanket numbers for all buildings everywhere; they’re from this specific comparison. Still, they point in an exciting direction. > We can rethink what we build our cities out of. ## Stone and sustainability — not opposites People often picture solar panels, super-insulation, or green roofs when they hear “sustainable.” But sustainability actually starts with what you build from. Every ton of material brings a backstory — mining, processing, shipping, installing. The energy used by a building during its life matters, but so does all the energy and carbon embedded in the building materials themselves. That’s “embodied carbon.” Projects like Petra Heights show how switching structural materials can shrink that footprint. The real question: Can changing the frame itself make a difference? There’s only one way to find out, and that’s to experiment with ideas like this. ## When stone replaces façade Another clever twist here: the stone is structure and façade, rolled together. Usually, you’d have a steel skeleton, insulating wrap, façade panels, and maybe a layer of decorative stone on the outside. Here, the stone skeleton is the exterior. So there’s no fake stone paneling, no hidden concrete core. You see exactly how the building stands up. You read the structure in the exposed geometric frame that defines the whole façade. It’s a look that sets Petra Heights apart. ## Built for its London neighborhood Petra Heights isn’t tucked away on some remote plot; it’s right on a busy London street, surrounded by city life. That forced the architects to break up the project into three separate blocks instead of a single monolithic mass. The blocks step down near the railway station, upper floors set back, easing the effect on neighbors and protected views. They managed to pull off something ambitious without sticking out like a sore thumb. Ultimately, this is a building designed for the place it sits. ## There are 22 new homes here Despite the buzz about engineering, Petra Heights was built for people. It’s home to 22 apartments, plus shops and workspaces at street level. Communal spaces and roof gardens are part of the plan. Access upstairs is via a lightweight, open-air staircase, and the stone lift shaft that serves the flats was dropped in impressively quick — assembled in about a day and a half with pre-made stone modules. Again, old material, modern approach. ## Making sure it's safe Building with stone isn’t as simple as it sounds. A 10-storey building needs to stand up to some serious forces, pass fire regulations, and meet all modern safety codes. This took a lot of engineering and testing. They checked each type of stone for strength and fire performance. Granite came out as the best option: strong and efficient for its size. Because of its height, the building was classed as “High-Risk” under the UK’s new safety laws, which meant extra scrutiny. > They had to prove this wasn’t a wild experiment — it had to be as safe as any modern home. ## Years of work went into this None of this happened overnight. Petra Heights grew from years of work by Groupwork founder Amin Taha and engineer Steve Webb, whose earlier project, 15 Clerkenwell Close, used a similar stone exoskeleton. That earlier building showed contemporary stone construction could work. Petra Heights pushes it much further — now ten storeys tall, with the stone frame doing all the heavy lifting. It’s a reminder that real innovation comes from lots of tinkering, learning, and testing — not from one sudden eureka moment. ## Plans had to change — more than once Not everything went according to plan. The team’s goal was to use local UK stone, but no nearby quarry could supply blocks big or strong enough. They tried Sicilian basalt, but supply and fabrication headaches pushed them to finally use Norwegian Larvikite. Shipping stone from Norway adds to the carbon footprint, of course — but it also shows the practical side of building with stone. If local quarries can catch up, future projects could be even more sustainable. This is the story of every building: balancing ideals with what’s actually possible on site. ## Could stone high-rises catch on? One building won’t change the world overnight. There are still questions: - Is local stone supply feasible? - Can this be done affordably? - How fast can it be built? - Does it work for even taller buildings, or in other climates? - Can this scale up? Nobody has all the answers yet. But Petra Heights is real — a building people live and work in, not a computer simulation. Architects, engineers, builders, and manufacturers can see what works and what needs tweaking. That’s how big changes in construction usually start: with a real, working prototype. ## Rethinking "modern" For decades, “modern” architecture has meant steel, concrete, and glass. Petra Heights suggests something different: modern isn’t always about new materials, but fresh uses for old ones. > Stone as structure in a 10-storey city building, engineered to act like steel? That’s a modern idea. Innovation often comes from looking again at what we've always had, and asking — could we do this differently? ## A more adaptable approach to construction There's a bigger message here: cities need more buildings, but building has to become smarter about resources. Maybe there isn’t a one-size-fits-all replacement for concrete and steel. The future might be a toolkit approach: - stone for strength - timber for floors - recycled products where they fit - insulation for efficiency - solar for energy - better design to use less material from the start The result? Buildings that feel lighter on the planet, not just in how they look, but in what they’re made from. ## London gives old stone a new future It feels right that London, a city built on stone, should lead the way here. Instead of just respecting tradition, Petra Heights uses stone to try something bold and new. It mixes ancient materials, digital design, industrial precision, and green thinking. > Progress doesn’t mean tossing out what you’ve always known. Sometimes it means seeing it differently. ## Big idea, small building Petra Heights isn’t a skyscraper. At just 22 homes, it wouldn’t catch your eye as a landmark. But its importance is bigger than its size. It proves stone can become the main frame for a genuinely modern, multi-storey building, while showing ways to bring down carbon emissions tied to construction. Sure, there’ll be hurdles before this approach becomes widespread — but you have to start somewhere. Petra Heights could be the precedent future designers and engineers point back to. ## Building the future — with the materials we already have Maybe the most inspiring part of this whole project is the simple idea behind it. Innovation doesn’t always mean inventing from scratch. Sometimes it’s about seeing the hidden potential in what’s been there all along. Stone is strong, durable, and can last for generations. With today’s engineering, we can shape and connect it in ways never before possible. Petra Heights pulls all these threads together. The next wave of sustainable construction might not come from one magic material, but from using familiar materials smartly, with better combinations and more careful thought. > London’s new stone-supported high-rise isn’t just a curiosity. 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