The rising sea levels and coastal erosion of the Mediterranean shoreline have put the future of its cities into question. Making Shores / Making Nature proposes a rescue scenario for the Mediterranean ecosystem through the artificial lowering of the sea levels and aims for a new topography thanks to a combination of anthropogenic, technological and natural drivers of change. By entangling the coastal territory and its materiality into an exaggerated sci-fi framework, the project speculates about the environmental consequences of a future when nature and landscape will be manmade. Which new spatial relations will surface in the previously submerged terrains of the Mediterranean? What material data can be revealed in these futuristic shores? Can these composite substances give birth to a new material technology in an era of resource depletion?
Making Shores / Making Nature explores these questions, through engaging with the processes of material scavenging and of 3D prototyping nature. The work is a 3-part visual essay consisting of a publication on the process, material fragments of the new shores and 3D prints of the new seascape units, based on the form of a Mediterranean seashell.