What is Adjacent Possible

This contribution tries to reintroduce Stereotomy within the field of “research by design”: the discipline, in fact, can be used as a means of re-composition of the design, project and execution phases. Starting from the origin of this break-up, the focus moves to the actual value of geometric and formal prefiguration and to the validity criteria that make its re-introduction desirable, both as educational discipline and design tool. In addition, it's suggested a line of research related to its critical update and the methods through which figure out the possible outcomes of its application. Particular attention is given to the prototype: only the material realization allows to obtain a tangible result to creative speculation. In the last part 7 stone prototypes will be presented. They have been developed during recent years as a result of the attempt to combine multiple instances into a synthetic architectural object.