Ocean soil

Autarky Collection

On the Atlantic coast, ocean matter is naturally created in the water through the sedimentation process. This characteristic, local material reaches the seashore with the tides. However, because of human activities on the coast, that raw matter is currently collected and discharged offshore. As a designer and actor of change, Aurore Piette has been developing several techniques leading to complementary applications from the ocean matter.

Aurore Piette Studio offers product design applications including furniture, painting, and ceramics. In conjunction to architectural applications with tile, brick, and wall coatings. Inspired by craft processes and in collaboration with engineers, the designer created the Autarky collection: a contemporary and local vision of creation by co-working with her close environment, the ocean.

Aurore Piette Studio proposes a coherent interior design defined from characteristics of local and revalued materials. Here, the aesthetic pays tribute to our first co-worker, the ocean, and embodies the locality of Meschers-sur-Gironde, the origin of the material.

Self-proclaimed as a craftswoman of the sea, Aurore Piette proposes to transpose to design the Autarkic ways of living that characterised the project-based area. Indeed, in the past, communities were living on a cliff, in caves. Following a self-sufficient approach they used local materials such as driftwood, as structures for furniture pieces. The designer proposes to use available natural materials such as cliff powder, created through the erosion process, using this material as a ceramic coating.

Text submitted by the maker and edited by the Future Materials Bank. For information about reproducing (a part of) this text, please contact the maker.