In an imagined future where the economic and environmental benefits of quarry-based settlements are fully realised, towns are no longer dislocated from extraction but embedded within them. A new urban typology emerges, integrating extraction and habitation into a single, symbiotic system: a Lithopolis.

Sited in the peripheries of Rome’s hinterlands lies Cava del Barco — a rich environment of Italy’s historic travertine quarries. Re-orientating extractive legacies toward material stewardship, the project unlocks future material terrains by terraforming abandoned quarries into new urban archipelagos. Exploring the material cultures and reciprocity of stone, a material methodology is proposed whereby existing and future stone waste forms the foundations of a low carbon stone architecture. Two entwined urban typologies — reactive and proactive — offer new futures for exhausted landscapes, with alternative closure methods making it easier for quarry territories to transform through time.