Indiana University, CRAFT Archaeological Research Center

Known as the Stone Age Institute, Indiana University’s Center for Research into the Anthropological Foundations of Technology (CRAFT) studies how humans first made tools, going back two and a half million years. Its home was built to make the same argument the research does.

The entrance is a broch, a 35-foot stone tower of the kind ancient civilizations built. We constructed it the way they did, laying river rock dry with no mortar, each stone held by its own weight and its fit against its neighbors. The same method runs through the exterior stone and the library fireplace.

Inside, 11,500 SF holds a gallery, a library with mezzanines looking down into it, laboratories, offices, and a reading room lit from above by skylights. The finishes are craft work: mahogany doors, quarter-sawn hardwood floors, a slatted wood ceiling, cherry cabinetry built to fit.