Three of a Kind: Natural Materials Reimagined As Beautiful Objects

You mightn’t give a second thought to an oyster shell once you’ve consumed its contents, or an eggshell once you’ve cracked it to make an omelette. But a crop of local, lateral-thinking designers is reconfiguring these naturally derived, often-wasted products into pieces that are tactile, distinctive and exemplify the beauty and ingenuity of sustainable style.

Table with Shell and Stone by Besley & Spresser

Intact mollusc shells can be spied in a Where’s Wally-type survey of these award-winning terrazzo tables. Sydney-based architects Peter Besley and Jessica Spresser, who designed a Sydney Harbour pavilion made of recycled Sydney oyster shells, have for this series repurposed shell waste from industries including aquaculture and hospitality. The tables are made with an intriguing mix of sea and stone remnants that speaks to where they’re from: greenlip abalone shell and basalt for Melbourne, blue mussel shell and dolerite for Hobart. The shells are randomly placed, twisted and cut so each casting is unique. Small plugs above the legs allow for removable bronze inserts to customise the table with lights, vessels, bookends or even a computer monitor arm.

Sill room divider by Other Matter

Expressive, marble-like ribbons and veins in various hues define the quiet beauty of the Sill room divider – a functional artwork by Jessie French, commissioned by rug maker Armadillo in response to its Meridian collection. It was made with Marblewood, an algae-derived “surface application” for giving wood a marble-style finish, created by French’s Melbourne-based experimental studio Other Matter, which specialises in renewable polymers. Marblewood was hand-poured onto each of the divider’s timber panels, with its natural gradations left to set. Pigments from Melbourne colour house Langridge Artist Colours were added in inky, silvery and cement-like hues.

Eggshell Bloom lamp by Joanne Odisho 

What started as a university project to develop a material using food waste – in this case, delicate, discarded eggshells – led to Melbourne designer Joanne Odisho’s lamp collection. Organic in both form and materiality, each ceramic-looking lamp resembles a blooming flower. In her research, Odisho came across eggshell composite recipes and began experimenting, developing the mixture so it could be versatile enough for lighting and furniture. She collects eggshells from cafes, which eventually become a fine powder blended with a naturally occurring polymer to form a self-curing, biodegradable composite poured into moulds to set.

This story is part of Broadsheet’s special Innovation Issue, presented by Mercedes-Benz.