Two people, one practice.

Stonecraft Atelier began in 2018 when Elena Marchetti, then a project manager at SOM’s San Francisco studio, identified a gap that reappeared on every significant residential commission she coordinated. The tile and stone specification work was consistently the most design-sensitive phase of construction, yet it was routinely passed to general contractors whose focus was schedule and margin rather than craft. The material decisions were being made by people who had never read a stone.

Elena had spent eleven years on twelve Bay Area commissions—including a 6,800-square-foot Hillsborough residence that became a regional reference for sustainable material sourcing. She understood specification at a level most project managers never reach. She also knew Marco.

Marco Bianchi’s family has cut stone in Carrara for three generations. His grandfather founded a quarrying partnership in the Fantiscritti basin in 1962. His father brought the trade to Marin County in 1988. Marco grew up in that shop, learning to read stone the way other children learned to read text: grain patterns, fault lines, the way a surface responds to a wet blade before it responds to a polishing wheel. He ran the family business alone after his father’s retirement in 2014.

The partnership is the atelier’s operating principle: architectural coordination and material instinct, unified. Neither function is subordinated to the other. Every project is a collaboration between the two of them from the first site visit through the final seal.