Stone Sourcing for 3XN

Surprisingly we first started out as a Slate company in the late 1980s called the Slate people, We have evolved and been sourcing Natural Stone from all parts of the planet. Through our extensive travels and unparalleled standards, Teranova has continued to discover unique Natural Stones that you can see across Australian design. Our superb range of Marble, Travertine, Limestone, Granite are just a touch on what we can do.

For many International architects specifying stone for projects can sometimes be challenging to find the same stone down under.

1. We First try to determine the type of stone from a digital image.
2. Why not a name of the stone? Well some stones vary and many look very similar as the material is natural it can be very challenging and names are given to a product some stones may share the same name but may be of different origin and different colour.
3. Once we think we have found the stone. We get a sample from the architect and make sure the colour is correct. We can try to match the colour of stone as much as possible as stone varies block to block
4. One of our architectural reps will take an overseas trip to see the quarry. This of course depends on the size of the project. We may need to explore many different quarries that offer the same stone. We have been to many quarries that have the same natural material but the variation is very large.
5. Once we find the correct stone we can ship it to many regions across the globe to get it processed as Australia has high labour cost it isn’t very economical to do local fabrication on a project down under unless of course budget isn’t in mind and you have a short lead time. To get firm prices we have to also find out the quality of the CNC machine the Manufacture is using which can be very important in getting the best overall look and from here we can cut the material in many different sizes from book matched slabs to intricate mosaics. Our products are ordered  and stored in our warehouse in Sydney until it is required.

In some instances we send images of the blocks and on request latest slabs and mosaics to get a feel of what you will receive once the product is in production.

3XN is a Danish architectural practice with head office in CopenhagenThe company was founded in Århus in 1986 as Nielsen, Nielsen & Nielsen (later 3 X Nielsen) by Kim Herforth Nielsen, Lars Frank Nielsen and Hans Peter Svendler Nielsen. The latter left the company, which is today led by a partner group of three with Kim Herforth Nielsen as the Principal Architect. The practice had its international breakthrough in the late 90s with the Danish Embassy in Berlin (completed in 1999) and the Muziekgebouw Concert Hall in Amsterdam (competition win in 1997). In 2005 3XN won the competition for the new Museum of Liverpool which opened in 2011.