The Urban Quarry

The stone recounts a tale of time, millions of years hidden in its layers, compressed in perfect silence – so slow that it surpasses human notions of time. 

Once a key element in the evolution of mankind, and later in the world of construction and architecture, over the years it has turned into a productive resource – crumbling, removed, and detached from its source. 

The project addresses the quarry industry, examining its environmental, economic, and spatial impact. Based on the realization that the distance between the quarry site and the construction site leads to waste, centralization, and environmental damage, it presents a new model of an urban quarry.

The model proposes a smart management of quarry materials extracted from developing sites in the urban fabric and reinstates the local use of stone as a basic element. The model strives to streamline the construction process, strengthen local material identity, and outline a new proposal for sustainable construction in cities.

This project sets Jerusalem as a test site for the development of a collaborative and infrastructural system for quarry materials, examining how this system integrates into the dense urban space, and how it affects the residents’ experience in it.