Aesop Chadstone

To call a design ‘mineral’ is to use a word long worn thin by misuse.

To call a design ‘mineral’ is to use a word long worn thin by misuse. And perhaps, for that reason, it is worth returning to. Mineralité does, indeed, carry meaning in architecture—and a poetry of its own.

When Aesop Chadstone opened in 2018, it was no exaggeration to use the word. Set in a sun-drenched luxurious mall, the store was defined by a vertiginous, material sobriety. Massive boulders of raw basalt, sourced from a nearby quarry in Castlemaine, were positioned at the entrance and throughout the space. It was impossible to ignore their presence.

Over the past 60 million years, countless eruptions across Australia have produced vast flows of magma which, solidifying at the surface, created a one-of-a-kind igneous rock plains. On contact with air, the lava cooled so quickly that no crystals could form—giving basalt its fine-grained texture. Yet the rocky horizons of Australia are not black. The iron within the stone, oxidised over millennia, has formed a golden skin—shifting from yellow to ochre depending on the climate—while the darker core remains hidden within.

With this updated iteration of Aesop Chadstone, it is no stretch to return to the word ‘mineral’. Across 120 square metres, surfaces of varied density and texture coexist within a uniform ochre palette. The ceiling, seemingly light as air despite its pumice-like texture, is made from a specialised acoustic spray foam that insulates the room. The walls are clad in a matte render of recycled glass, gently rough to the touch, glinting like quartz embedded in the earth. Some of the original raw basalt stones have been reconfigured, recalling the earlier store—as do the reused blackened steel shelves. Different as they may be, the new design and its 2018 version remain bound by a tie that is solid as stone.