This week I had to confirm the suitability of our Shell Gris for a very large commercial project I am currently working on. The building in The City would be the workplace for over 6000 people and with the design life of 50 years. This requirement would mean the stone needs to withstand 150,000,000 visitors during its life (6000 x 2 (to and from work) x 250 (working days in the year x 50 (design life). If you add the fact that everyone might go out for lunch and that then doubles to 300,000,000!! But that would be taking it too far detail wise!

On second week of November I visited Italy to inspect a small mock up and the blocks reserved for our order destined for the Bank of China specified by TP Bennett. During our trip we also managed to visit the quarry where this particular limestone is actually mined. The quarry has been in operation for 30 years, just 10 years ago they decided to go underground to avoid a difficult layer of two of fractured and poor quality blocks. The project we has been working on has been running for some time and the material had changed slightly from when the San Remo had been first sampled (Please note though this is a feature now of the material so should be considered for future projects!).