introduction Natural stone, as a high-end building decoration material, has the advantages of nobility and elegance, natural texture, unique texture, wide variety, and durability, and is widely used in high-end building decoration projects. Due to overcapacity and fierce competition in the stone processing industry, stone companies are pressuring each other to accept orders. Some stone companies, after accepting stone orders through low-priced competition, adopt methods such as reducing the quality level of stone and thinning the thickness of stone products to reduce costs. When stone enterprises deliver products, situations such as substandard quality, incorrect goods, and delayed construction periods often occur. The owner may have achieved the goal of reducing stone prices, but the product quality and after-sales service are far from the expected goals. How to reduce stone costs while ensuring the design effect and product quality requirements of building decoration engineering has become a common focus of attention for project owners, designers, decoration companies, and stone suppliers. The high cost of stone materials in many construction and decoration projects is mainly due to inherent deficiencies in the design process of the project, improper selection of stone materials, and unreasonable design of product shapes, specifications, and dimensions. We can significantly reduce the stone cost of decoration engineering projects by optimizing the design scheme of stone application.

1、 Efforts must be made in selecting materials
In the implementation process of decoration engineering projects, many designers attach great importance to design effectiveness and installation methods, but lack understanding of the price, physical properties, and process flow of the stones used in the project. When selecting the types of stones used in decoration engineering projects, they rarely think from the perspective of investors, users, and operators. They do not pay attention to how to reduce the cost of stones, and sometimes they are also influenced by market hidden rules, Design some stone varieties with high prices and poor performance into decoration engineering projects. Therefore, there is a significant room for optimization and improvement in the selection of stone varieties in architectural decoration projects.
1. On the premise of meeting the design effect, stone varieties with low cost and minimal damage should be selected as much as possible.
Due to the natural properties of stone, there are significant differences in the physical properties and appearance characteristics between most stone varieties. The physical properties, colors, and textures of stone produced in different mining areas of the same mine vary. If you only look at the parts of the stone, even if it is the same piece of stone or large board, there are significant differences in different parts. If we look at the overall decoration effect of stone, there are only small differences in the color, texture, physical properties, and other aspects of some stone varieties, which can completely replace each other in decoration engineering projects. Due to the different origins and mining costs of stone mines, there is a significant difference in sales prices. On the premise of meeting the design requirements, if a relatively inexpensive stone variety can be selected to replace the expensive variety, the stone cost can be significantly reduced.
2. Choose stone varieties with guaranteed supply channels.
In some engineering cases, it is common to encounter significant changes in the quality and output of the selected stone varieties in the mine, and even some projects have stopped mining the selected stone mines. Stone processing enterprises, in order to complete the supply of stone for engineering projects, search for surplus materials in the stone market to piece together and complete the project, resulting in increased stone costs and delayed construction periods. The colors and textures of stone products are diverse.
3. Carefully select stone varieties that are monopolized by a few stone suppliers.
When a certain stone variety has a great chance of being selected by a large project, some companies sign exclusive sales agreements with stone mines in order to obtain high profits, monopolize the market for a period of time, manipulate stone prices, and increase stone costs.
4. Avoid improper material selection that may lead to increased stone costs due to rework.
In many decoration projects, outdoor floors, indoor hallway floors, and bathroom floors are designed with stone materials that are prone to cracks, soft materials, high water absorption, and easy to contaminate. After the stone comes into contact with water and pollutants, it quickly becomes diseased. Even through methods such as re polishing, repair, and decontamination, it is still difficult to completely solve the problem, requiring replacement and rework, resulting in increased stone costs.

2、 When designing stone products, the following precautions should be taken into account
1. The size and quality of stone waste materials vary greatly. Some stone materials are dense, stable, with few cracks, and the size of waste materials is large, making them suitable for producing large-sized stone products; Some stone materials are unstable, with uneven colors and textures, numerous cracks, and small sizes of raw materials, making them unsuitable for producing large-sized stone products.
When designing products, it is necessary to consider not only the size and uniformity of raw materials produced by the mine, but also the processing characteristics and production processes of stone materials, in order to improve the utilization rate of raw materials and reduce material waste. If the stone product with soft and cracked materials is too large, too long, or the length to width ratio is not appropriate, it is prone to fracture during production, processing, transportation, and installation, resulting in scrapping and increasing costs.
The quotation for stone products is very simple, with finished product price=raw material cost/utilization rate+processing fee+packaging fee+gross profit. If the specifications and dimensions of stone products are not suitable, the utilization rate of stone raw materials is low, and there is a lot of waste, stone companies will inevitably calculate the waste of raw materials into the cost, and the price of stone products will naturally increase. On the premise of not affecting the decorative effect, sometimes as long as minor modifications are made to the specifications and dimensions of stone product design, the utilization rate of stone raw materials will be greatly improved.
2. The design of stone products should follow the principles of material conservation, standardization, easy processing, and easy installation. Designers should try to classify and unify the specifications and dimensions of stone products as much as possible to improve product consistency and interchangeability.
Some designers rarely consider the consistency and interchangeability of product specifications when designing the shape and dimensions of stone products. There are a wide variety of product sizes, without batch production or even single piece customization, resulting in low production efficiency, multiple opportunities for errors, and high production and processing costs. Due to the lack of interchangeability in the specifications and dimensions of stone products, it is not possible to achieve uniform transitions in texture and color during factory production and layout, which affects the decorative effect.
3. The reasonable and appropriate size combination of stone products is beneficial for improving the yield and reducing material waste. When designing the size of stone products, it is necessary to combine the texture direction of the stone raw materials, continuously optimize the size segmentation scheme of stone products, and reduce the generation of leftover materials at the edges and corners during the processing.
4. Use the same type of stone in different installation positions, and try to come up with a design plan as much as possible to avoid placing separate orders.
For example, the lobby space of hotels and office buildings is large, and the specifications and dimensions of stone materials are large, resulting in a large amount of material usage. The space in the restroom and hallway is small, and the stone size is small. If the stone materials in the lobby, restroom, and hallway are plotted and ordered simultaneously, it is beneficial for the overall planning and production processing of the stone processing process, improving the material yield and product quality, and reducing the stone cost.
5. Reasonably designing stone intervals such as wave lines and splices can reduce the adverse impact of stone color difference on decorative effects and improve the utilization rate of stone raw materials. Reasonable matching of different colors of stone can cover up natural defects and improve the utilization rate of stone.
6. Selecting special stone surface treatment can improve stone utilization and also reduce costs. For stones with uneven texture and large color difference, use matte surface, lychee surface

3、 According to the material characteristics of different stones, select appropriate acceptance standards for stone appearance quality
Some stone mines produce raw materials with stable appearance quality, consistent texture and color, and the acceptance standards for appearance quality can be appropriately strict. Some stones have naturally different textures and colors, and mixing stones with different textures and colors can better reflect the natural decorative effect. If we blindly pursue color consistency and only accept small color differences in stones, the yield can only be significantly reduced, and the cost of stones may increase exponentially.
4、 Conclusion
Due to the information asymmetry between the owners, designers, decoration companies, and stone processing companies, it is impossible for them to fully understand the characteristics, processing techniques, and market trends of each type of stone. Stone processing companies should actively communicate and gain the full understanding of project decision-makers during the sales process. Sometimes, as long as the design scheme is slightly adjusted, the cost of stone will be significantly reduced. In some projects, the technical personnel of stone processing enterprises should be involved in the design process in advance to provide technical support and professional advice in stone application design.
Due to the correlation between the charging standards for architectural decoration engineering design and the building area and cost base, the higher the project cost, the more design fees there are, and the designer lacks the inherent motivation to reduce the project cost. The engineering design team should have a higher level of pursuit, not be influenced by abnormal interests, consider from the perspective of the owner, continuously optimize plans, make efficient use of stone resources, reduce stone costs, and design classic works with personality, outstanding characteristics, and can withstand the test of time.