From the quarry to the stadium.
Behind the Optus Stadium walling: Toodyay Stone, Donnybrook Sandstone, and a design built without mortar, concrete, or steel.
The Optus Stadium precinct walling is one of the largest natural-stone landscape installs in Western Australia's recent history. Designed by artist Chris Drury, the work spreads across the public concourse in a Cornish stone-wall pattern that flows around the stadium edge, culminating in Donnybrook Sandstone whirlpools at the gathering points.
Rural Stone WA supplied both materials direct from the source: Toodyay quartzite from the formation north-east of Perth, and Donnybrook Sandstone from the south-west region. Every piece was traceable to the quarry it came out of. No imports, no fillers, no substitutions.
The structural ambition of Drury's design is also worth noting: no mortar, no concrete, no steel. The walling is bound by soil and planting alone, the way stone walls were built in coastal Cornwall before industrial materials. Two hundred years from now, on the right maintenance schedule, the work will still be there.
What this project proved at scale is that WA-quarried stone can hold a flagship commercial brief without compromise. The supply tested at volume and the install at scale, and the work has aged well across the seasons since.
