The Natural Stoneshow 2013 / 30th April - 2nd May 2013

Looking for innovative ways of using stone? Then the Natural Stone Show is a good starting point. One of the developments on show is a lightweight stone rainscreen system that has 10mm of stone on a 20mm backing of lightweight aerated clay concrete.

It is called Alsecco Airtec Stone and allows the unique properties of natural stone to be combined with modern façade technology to produce a material that weighs only 33kg per square metre at 30mm - nearly 60% less than solid stone.

It is being introduced by Caparol of Stone in Staffordshire and will be sold by Telling Architectural in Wolverhampton, who currently sell terracotta and porcelain rainscreens in Argeton, a material made by extruding twin-skinned clay tiles.

The Alsecco Airtec Stone is made in Netzschkau in Germany, where 2,500 different types of natural stone from all over the world have so far been used to make these panels for use on buildings. They say there is no reason why any building stone could not be used.

The manufacturing process involves making 2m thick blocks of the aerated clay concrete that are cut into panels 20mm thick. The stone is bonded to the panels with an adhesive and mechanical fixings put into the back of the concrete to hold the wall on to the frame. And it has all been thoroughly tested by Taylor Woodrow at Leighton Buzzard.

Panels up to 3m² can be hooked into the special aluminium frame of the ventilated curtain façade without any visible fixing elements.

Special fair-faced edges can be created for a monolithic impression at the corners of a building using resin mixed with stone dust and false and decorative joints are also easily achieved.

But the Germans are not alone in offering new ways of using stone on façades. Two of Britain's largest stone quarry companies, Stancliffe and Realstone, who are also exhibiting at ExCeL, have their own systems.

Realstone are using the Natural Stone Show to launch their new stone rainscreen system called Genesis.

This involves a patented Techlever vertical aluminium rail and clip substructure that allows granite, sandstone and limestone as thin as 30mm to be used in a rainscreen.

Their system has also been thoroughly tested at the Taylor Woodrow centre.

In addition, Realstone will be showcasing another of their innovations, Flexastone. This is a thin (1-3mm) flexible sheet of real stone up to 3m long.

It can be mounted on any solid, dry and dust free surface. It can be curved around mouldings and takes the use of stone in interior design to a new dimension.

Flexastone is also available on rigid, lightweight honeycomb panels suitable for exterior cladding.

Stancliffe's system is called Pan Ash, which is curtain walling with an outer skin of their sandstone, a ventilated gap and a waterproof backing wall.

The product was developed by a team from four companies and Stancliffe's Ian Robottom says: "Technology has increased the means and knowledge to build with natural sandstone."

Another British innovator is The Stone Consortium, a partnership between Stoneguard, Stone Panels Inc and Stone.Co.UK. They will also be demonstrating the versatility and strength of lightweight cladding panels with stone bonded to an aircraft grade aluminium honeycomb and the panels weighing as little as 16kg/m², yet up to 60 times stronger than stone in its conventional form. The panels have been successfully used in climatic extremes from Moscow to Chicago and Alaska to Puerto Rico. Here in the UK, they have recently received BBA certification.

And on the Inter Marmi stand a new 'glass stone' from 6mm up to 30mm is being shown.