stoneCIRCLE's work for the Harrods Fine Watch Room was highly commended at the Natural Stone Awards 2018, held on Friday 7th December at The Grange Tower Bridge Hotel, London.

When architects Rundell Associates were tasked with refurbishing the Fine Watch Sales area in world-renowned department store Harrods, Knightsbridge, they chose to work with stoneCIRCLE for the stone fabrication involved.

The project was to manufacture and install curved quarter book-matched marble panels to the walls and solid marble treads to create a new staircase positioned in an elliptical opening in the floor which links the two areas of the Fine Watch Room. stoneCIRCLE also fabricated walnut travertine back panels to the display cases on the wall.

A single block of Cipollino Cremo Tirreno marble was selected in Italy by Mike Rundell, Designer and Founder of Rundell Associates, and sourced through McMamilloyd of Great Bedwyn for the walls.  Crema Marfil was selected in Spain for the stair treads, apron nosings and floors.

The slabs needed to be sawn to different sizes to allow for the panels to curve round the walls of the elipse. The walls and stairs were modelled in 3D by stoneCIRCLE to ensure that these sizes were correctly calculated. From the modelling, a cutting schedule detailing the thicknesses and sequence of each slab from the block was sent to Italy so that the block could be sawn.

Once the slabs were in the company’s Basingstoke factory, they were photographed on the Slabsmith photo station and rendered so that the book-matching could be worked out. This was then approved by both the client and architect, before the slabs were cut and shaped on the CNC saws ready to be honed by hand.

The original time allowed for the installation was four weeks but the company was told that the scaffold and gantry were coming down and they therefore had to speed up the installation to have all of the treads and wall panels in place in just two weeks.

Commenting on the project, Mike Rundell said: "The sweeping staircase is a significant new architectural feature that we hope will be enjoyed by customers for years to come.”

www.stone-circle.com