Black saddle oyster shells shore carry their history in their surface — their outer layer darkening when buried in iron and sulphur-rich sediment, transformed by the very conditions that shaped them. Inspired by these ideas of growth and transformation, this work takes its name and its formal language from that relationship.

Made from micro-laminated smoked-oak veneer, two asymmetrical components are each formed as a continuous, curved profile — the layered section visible at the edges and on the top surfaces references the stacked, organic lamination of the shells. The components are designed to rest in counterbalance: structurally independent yet visually interdependent, their proportions and curvature resolved through iterative physical shaping.

An unsmoked seam — where the fuming process failed to penetrate — was retained and its course carefully considered in the final layout: a vein of pale oak tracing the boundary between transformed and untransformed material, and a direct record of the making process itself.

Material: Smoked Oak, finished with Hard Wax/Oil

Dimensions: (H) 770 mm, (W): 1490 mm, (D): 240 mm

*Secreted by molluscs, conchiolin forms the organic matrix of a shell – providing a protective, outer layer shielding it from corrosion and serving as an initial framework for growth.