Fabrication, Digital Art & Narrative
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This project is a fantastical narrative that imagines a world where architecture and nature exist together as one. This research-heavy narrative focuses on the amazing filter-feeding abilities of the oyster along with the oyster's shell - a calcite structure that has concrete-like properties.
Below is a collection of illustrations, research, and physical objects that were produced to support the narrative. The full story titled, The Story of The Mineral Pinnacles at the Queen's Coast can be found here.
Mineral Palimpsest aims to connect architecture to the sea by fostering a symbiotic relationship between the two. In this narrative the oyster serves as the link to this connection. Because the primary constituent mineral in an oyster's shell is calcite theoretically, its shell can be collected, milled down, and casted like concrete. By way of example, early Spanish settlers in present-day North Carolina and Florida created a type of oyster shell concrete called tabby. This was achieved by burning oyster shells in order to extract lime.
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One unique characteristic of the oyster among other sea life are its filter feeding capabilities. A single oyster is capable of filtering 50 gallons of water each day.
Mineral Palimpsest explores the idea of deploying oyster colonies along problematic coastal regions with excessive chemical runoff. The individual oyster would spend its life filtering toxic coastal waters. When the oyster dies the shell is collected and recycled.
Mineral pinnacles are then casted in layers and in accordance with the life and death of the oyster. The result is a monument of remembrance; A visual reminder of our once devastated coastlines.
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When subjected to temperatures around 1,500 degrees F an oyster shell (calcium carbonate CaCO3(s)) will decompose into two smaller constituents: calcium oxide (CaO(s) + carbon dioxide CO2(g) Calcium oxide is the needed constituent in this process because it is essentially lime. When mixed with water (CaO(s) + H2O(I) > Ca(OH)2(s), and allowed to dry, the solid will reintroduce carbon dioxide back into itself once again and form a crystal lattice and essentially cure around the oyster shell aggregate.
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Average life of an oyster is 6 years.
The time frame between casts is congruent with the life and death of the oyster. If one oyster shell contains roughly 1 in. calcite then based on cast volume, the amount of oysters needed can be calculated.
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While this is pure speculation, one can assume that as oyster colonies grow more stable more will live and more will die. In turn, as time progresses larger casts can be made in a relatively shorter period of time.
The time frame between casts is congruent with the life and death of the oyster. If one oyster shell contains roughly 1 in. calcite then based on cast volume, the amount of oysters needed can be calculated. While this is pure speculation, one can assume that as oyster colonies grow more stable more will live and more will die. In turn, as time progresses larger casts can be made in a relatively shorter period of time.
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Oysters feed solely on plankton, i.e copepods. Oysters are filter feeders, drawing water in over their gills through the beating of cilia. Suspended plankton becomes trapped in the oyster's gills and from there are transported to their mouth. Oysters filter feed around the clock at a rate of nearly 50 gallons of water per day, more than 1,500 times their body volume. They are able to filter out carbon and other toxins that are linked as being causes of dead zones along ocean coastlines.
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Marine dead zones are caused by an increase in chemical nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous. These chemicals are the fundamental building blocks of single-celled, plant-like organisms called Cyanobacteria. Cyanobacteria, a type of harmful algae, blooms rapidly in response to a large chemical influx. Shortly thereafter it dies and decomposes across the ocean floor. As a result, the area becomes eutrophic; or depleted of oxygen.
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The oil Derrick's ability to generate and transfer energy from a circular to linear motion enables the derrick to pump and carry oil from the ground below. These same principles can be deployed in order to pump oxygen into the refugium; an area suited for the breeding of copepods.
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Copepod, meaning "oar feet" are a group of small crustaceans found at sea. They make up one of the four categories of plankton called zooplankton and feed solely on catching single celled phytoplankton. These little floaters, while capable of intermittent spurts of locomotion are far too tenuous to combat ocean currents, denying them any chance of autonomy at sea.
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