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Calcium Nest
Wales
2022
Erosion
Germination
Performance
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Temporary Ephemeral Installation
Client: CUBE, Centre for Urban and Built Environment London Metropolitan
Project Leadership, Research and Design Direction by Cristina Morbi (Maetherea)
Client: CUBE, Centre for Urban and Built Environment London Metropolitan
Project Leadership, Research and Design Direction by Cristina Morbi (Maetherea)
Calcium Nest explores calcium and mineral architecture as an active participant in ecological processes, developing an applied research to landscape pioneered by Cristina Morbi (2021, Tapestry of Biodiversity), drawing on ecological science, agricultural practices and material experimentation to investigate how designed structures can support wider mineral and biological cycles.
Research has identified calcium limitation in some acidified environments as a potential pressure on wild birds, affecting eggshell formation and skeletal growth. Calcium Nest responds through a performative structure whose mineral blocks combine calcium-rich crushed oyster shells, recovered from waste streams, with seeds selected in relation to local biodiversity.
As birds interact with the structure, the material is progressively consumed and eroded. Seeds embedded within it can be carried and dispersed through the landscape. Birds, insects, plants and humans become participants in an architecture that changes through inhabitation, weathering, growth and seasonal cycles.
Twisted mineral blocks form an open enclosure around a multisensory planted landscape. The planting responds to local soil, climate and seasonal conditions, while translucent membranes move with the wind. Over time, the installation becomes a changing interface between mineral matter, vegetation and animal activity: an architecture designed to be inhabited, consumed and transformed.
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