An aesthetic, almost uniform natural stone wall, whether without a natural veining or with a directed veining, is the design goal in the majority of projects. The project experiences of the last years show a general trend from the planning stage. The aesthetics of uniformity should be achieved with large to very large stone slabs. This is contradicted by the genesis of most types of stone. In the project renderings, single particularly beautiful stone slabs are usually reproduced as a pattern base. The resulting images seduce the eye and create high expectations.
Practice shows: too large homogeneous stone slabs pose enormous challenges for a large number of quarries. All types of stone have their own history. Often, in addition to sedimentary layers formed over millions of years, tectonic shifts, distortions and crystalline restructuring are also part of the product natural stone.
In the projects, experience prices from existing projects are used for the cost estimates. However, these prices are the result of optimization and partial value engineering. So it is not surprising that in most projects the cost estimates differ massively from the incoming offer prices. Combined with the disappointment of the designers and clients.
Digitality offers a completely new way to integrate the desired aesthetic design into a project while optimizing costs. Through the use of scanners, stone slabs are digitally recorded to an ever-increasing extent. Thus, before the final processing, there is the possibility to digitally blend the own project or only parts of it.
The digital platform DDL offers exactly these functions. Transformed project plans can be blended with real slabs in a few minutes. In most cases this blending becomes a creative dialogue between the architect, the natural stone and the stone surfaces in the project.
The special feature of DDL, apart from the precise plan transfer, is above all the automatic detailed generation of all cost-relevant information. This information is immediately available to the stone producer for a calculation. In addition, the slab yield is also displayed visually in order to quickly identify optimization potential.
For the architect, the use of the digital platform is another special economic feature. If the stone surfaces are laid out and blended in different sizes, the stone producer can specify the different square meter prices with minimal effort.
The cool thing is: although the square meter prices are reduced, the aesthetics of the wall can often be refined through precise blending.
The current examples from practice astonish in the positive sense both the architects and the owners. The advantages for all are manifold. In addition to the creative freedom and complete control of the glare by the architect, a higher yield factor can be achieved on the part of the stone producers, which is reflected in the project as an economic advantage for the client. The inspectors supervising the project can specifically control the production process, not just the final dry layout. For the installer, delivery and installation reliability of all slabs is ensured by the targeted tracking of each individual slab as well as the exact position specifications in the aesthetic puzzle of the project.
In summary, digitality and the DDL platform offer a new aesthetic and economical way to successfully implement projects with natural stone precisely and to the highest perfection.
With DDL, the stone industry and the planning architects have a new digital tool at their hands to optimize a variety of tasks and project requirements.
