Image courtesy of Squak Mountain Stone web site

By far one of our favorite origin stories is the one behind a material called Squak Mountain Stone. We had an unexpected chance to speak with and get all the details from Ameé Quiriconi, founder of Tiger Mountain Innovations, based in Seattle, Washington.

Her interest in sustainable building practices dates back almost a decade. By 2001, she was already a LEED accredited professional. She decided to round out her education by enrolling at Antioch University for her master’s degree. One quarter, she wrote an economics paper about local economies. Inspired by a building material called papercrete, she explored the academic principle of regional manufacturing. Ameé theorized that if you could develop a product whose raw ingredients can be found in any community in any state, then you could develop a business model to commercialize it and have that regionally manufactured product available to… well, any community. Papercrete, a mix of paper pulp gathered from recycled sources and added to a cement binder, seemed a fitting inspiration since recycled paper can be found anywhere, and cement is readily available. At the time when she wrote this paper, she thought the end product could be geared toward vertical interior applications, perhaps as wall treatments.

Ameé liked the idea so much that she wondered why no one was doing something like it. So, in the shed of her home, she launched her experiments. Both the name of the company and the name of the product are inspired by the mountains surrounding Issaquah, WA, where her home is located. She started with a hand mixer, a hand polisher, a few spring-form baking pans, and sacks of raw material that she herself sourced from the community. Absolutely everything was done by hand.

About a year later, by early 2003, her experiments had yielded something she could show. She took a few of her hand-cast samples and presented them to officials in King County, who offered help in the form of money so that she could secure some technical support. This allowed her to then develop the early versions of Squak Mountain Stone.

A year after that, in early 2004, King County issued a press release about her fledgling business, and the story was picked up by a couple of local newspapers. The Seattle-based Environmental Home Center saw one of these articles, where Ameé was pictured hand-polishing a slab of the material, and came to her aid. They wanted to see her product get further along, and offered to pre-qualify clients who they thought would be good beta customers for the material. This would allow Ameé to develop the programs (like manufacturing and marketing) that were necessary to take the product out of her garage and into commercial viability.

With this help, she finally picked up an actual shop. However, without any employees, she relied on help from family and friends. On Saturdays, Ameé, two of her friends, and her husband would cast the slabs that she would polish later during the week. It wasn’t until 2005 that she was able to hire her company’s first full time employee and a second part time employee. Also in 2005, the Environmental Home Center started to sell Squak Mountain Stone, which further helped her to expand her customer base.

Image courtesy of Squak Mountain Stone web site

Over the years, the material itself has evolved. In the beginning, the recipe called for Portland cement and granite dust as binders. The granite dust eventually gave way to coal fly ash, which in turn has more recently been replaced by 100% recycled crushed glass. About three years ago, the mix transitioned from Portland cement to low-carbon cement. Infrastructure improvements now allow for slabs as large as 56” x 96” and as long as 16’ whose thickness is gauged to within +-2 mm of variation. This evolution is actually visible, even in the small samples that they produce. (The samples in our library, which we received about three years ago, are decidedly rough in comparison.)

A recent merger has expanded the product offering to include Trinity Glass, a line of solid surfacing material that incorporates 100% post-consumer recycled clear glass sourced in King County itself (the cullet comes from plate window glass). Their Pacific Collection presents a color palette wholly inspired by hues that Ameé noticed during a stroll on the beach, and which she photographed for further exploration.

Undoubtedly, though perhaps little by little, Ameé will continue to prove the viability of her original thesis. Already she has proven that the idea can transition from theory to practice in at least one place. These products are not just environmentally friendly; their genuine locally-sourced lineage makes them stand out from the pack.

Thank you, Ameé, for your time!

related posts:

• April 8, 2010 -- stories of sustainability: Deborah Guyer Greene (0)
• April 5, 2010 -- stories of sustainability: Carol Baumgartel (0)
• March 24, 2010 -- on tour: Kirei USA (3)
• March 22, 2010 -- stories of sustainability: Vetrazzo (0)
• March 19, 2010 -- on tour: Coverings Etc (0)