A ceramic product line designed by Product Design Program Assistant Professor Trygve Faste and Department of Art Instructor Jessica Swanson is featured in designboom’s Top 10 Reader Submissions of 2015 in the product design category. Their project, Intertidal Deployment Object Series 2, is a collection of ceramic products adorned with barnacles. The duo’s studio, Something Like This Design, chose to work with sea-growing organisms for their unique complexity and raw appeal.

As designboom describes it: Exploration of the concept takes form as a modular system of interchangeable forms that can be submerged into an ocean environment one section at a time. Once marine life has grown, the piece(s) can be removed and collectively assembled into a finished product. Through consultation and collaboration with the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology, the project was educated in the vast vocabulary of nautical hardware and equipment, as well as the technical constraints of barnacle growth.

Above: Intertidal Deployment Object 020, approx. 11” tall, 10” wide ceramic, cotton rope, barnacles. Trygve Faste and Jessica Swanson, Something Like This Design, 2015.