Ocean Articulated is a recyclable and load-bearing material with locally extracted salt, sand and plant based natural binder. It is water dissoluble and sensitive to the humidity over 80%.

The self-initiated project Ocean Articulated started with a geomorphological investigation into material cycles of salt and sand/gravel, where those materials lay on each other, as remains of a prehistoric sea and deposits of glacial erosion in the High-Rhine area of the Northern Switzerland.

Considering the environmental impact of sand extraction and the associated transportation costs, the question arose whether there is a way to use sand as a reusable material and communicate this aesthetically in a form appropriate to the material.

To build objects and structural elements we used a sand casting method, which is traditionally used for casting metals. It was the ideal casting type for this project as it is a relatively simple process, enables us to use the same sand for mould building and more importantly it imprints the granular structure of the material on the objects’ surface.
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The initial compressive strength test proves the load-bearing capacity for the developed material and is around 15.6 MPa (mega pascal), which makes it a structural material (As a reference, a family house can be built with a material has the compressive strength around 3-4 MPa).

The objects and mould can be built layer by layer, similar to other additive manufacturing techniques. This additive ability enables the possibility to manufacture cantilever forms. The humid paste is placed into the empty space which is created in the sand mould and it partly joins with the mould surface while hardening. As a consequence of this merge, each casting produces slightly different and coincidentally transformed results. After the drying process, mould sand can be removed and the object is excavated. So far we produced a series of stools, tiles and pedestals.

Similar to the mixing and setting process, the recycling process is fairly straight-forward and the material can be easily dissolved into its raw materials, sand and salt, either by natural decomposition or rapidly with water. The temporary nature of the objects is a reminder to be careful when selecting materials and to simply borrow them from nature rather than consuming. We would like to draw attention to the concept of time in relation to the formation of materials, something people rarely consider when it comes to buying a product.