This project is a fantastical narrative that imagines a world where
architecture and nature exist together as one. The narrative focuses on the amazing filter-feeding abilities of the
oyster, the oyster's shell - which has concrete-like properties
and a fictional character called the beach monk. The story spans over a series of hyper-detailed digital 1/1 drawings, and has been displayed at multiple galleries around the Los Angeles area including, the WOHO gallery on Hollywood Blvd.
This story begins along the warm and breezy
southern California shore. It is here, if you’re lucky one might find a special and solitary group of beings, a group that has occupied
and tended these shores for millennia, a group
otherwise known as the Beach Monks.
The legend goes, that the Beach Monks live
most of their lives at sea, like mermaids, their
activities are shrouded in mystery. We know
little about the Monks but what we do know,
is that they are passionate about the sea and
rooted in nature.
To their astonishment the Monks discovered
that Oyster shells (primarily being made up cal-
cite), when subjected to around 1,500 degrees
Fahrenheit, will decompose into two smaller
constituents: carbon dioxide and calcium ox-
ide. Calcium oxide being what we all know as
lime. When this is mixed with water, and al-
lowed to dry, the solid will cure around the oyster
shell aggregate, thus producing concrete. And so, their plan was set into motion. The mil-
lions of excess oyster shells would be collected
over a very long period of time, eventually to be
milled down, and casted like concrete layer by
layer.
The time frame between casts is congruent with
the life and death of the oyster. If an oysters
shell contains roughly 1 cubic inch of calcite,
then a rough number of oysters can be calcuated for each cast’s volume.
Once the cast is set it may be years or even
decades before enough oyster shells are collect-
ed, milled, and fossilized into the next layer of
form-work.
Similar to how the oyster’s shell grows
layer by layer, the pinnacles do too.
One by one another layer is added becoming reflection of time and a visual representation of ocean toxicity.
