The sanding clock is a huge, hanging sand clock. Instead of sand, there are little North Sea stones in it. Instead of measuring human time, It’s generating the future sand.

The sanding clock is not a solution for resource crisis or pollution. As asocial designer, I want to give people a chance to feel the different timestandard and lifespan of nature than human in an imaginary way. This design is to remind people of the independence and magic of nature so we don’t need to value everything by human standards.

It’s a design for everyone. People can touch it and feel. It’s also a story that people can listen to or watch from far away.

Design statement:

How did sand become sand?

How many seconds, minutes, hours or years does it take?

In this giant, artificial shaped sanding clock on top of your head, are little North Sea beach stones. They are gathered by volunteers while cleaning the beach. It’s generating the future sand by the wind, gravity, and you.

When you move it, do you feel it’s also moving you?

As an important part of the sea, everything has sand around. In the Netherlands, we are protected by sand everyday. “Washing off all the sand on us” is what we do after the beach day. And many people see sand only as a construction material. We don’t care where they come from and where they will go. They are so small, but if you look closely enough, they all have different colours, shapes, and they come from mountains all over the world.

We use a sand clock as an old-fashioned tool to measure time. The time is our time, but do sand, rock, and mountains have their own time?

People should be underneath the sanding clock, imagine the stones become sand in a very far away future. Can you feel the lifespan of the sand by listening to the sliding, collision and friction of the stones? Move it, Can you imagine how many movements it had during the long journey that sand went on?

Every tiny piece of nature come from a long way. Even the smallest thing has their own history and value. Let’s listen to nature, respect and rethink. We can do it better.

The shape of the design:

I see the sand clock as a symmetric shape, so any two same shaped things can be assembled to one sand clock. If we need the help of an artificial object to learn that we need to respect nature, I want to make the shape of this object artificial enough.

Every time I go to the beach, I grab some trash and throw it into the bin. As you can imagine, plastic is the most common beach trash.

Plastic products are made by mould in a massive production way. So many of them have the same shape. I use this concept to design the shape by assembling plastic. The final one I chose is made by egg box.
         

         

I was tall, I was big. Tall enough to have different seasons at the same time, big enough to be home for birds, squirrels, wolfs, bears, trees and mushrooms. I could smell the thin air next to the cloud, and there were fishes swimming next to my feet.

You know, animals they don’t live that long, same as plants. While I can  be there for very very long, but I don’t know if I am living.

But suddenly, I became so small, like one of a hundred million than before. I fell in the salty sea. I was thin and sharp, like a piece of chopped wood. And this is just a beginning.


I was in the sea, the water touched me, took me. I got smaller, smaller,  smaller and smaller. Also rounder and rounder.

How small I am? I guess those living species can still see me. But I can never be a “one”. I am small enough to be always together with hundreds, thousands, of similar ones.
                                                                                  

In the deep sea, there were many colors, there were many textures, I have seen many many fishes  been eaten, some fish got really close to each other then they could have small fishes from many transparent bubbles. How amazing? Little corals copy themselves they grew up huge and die. Do I also reproduce, it’s hard to say. Sometimes I went into animals’ body. Sometime I float then I fell. Light, dark, light, dark. I have seen time pass by, and there were less and less colours and textures.

There is a funny thing, I took so long to became so small, but some of my similar ones just come out of a big fish’s belly and they are already like us.

I got many green friends, they are much bigger than me, but they are so thin and so smooth. When the waves came they always shivered so happily, and they got many bubbles around. Sometimes I float on their body then slide down, it excited me every time.


The time kept floating, I barely got smaller anymore, everything was peaceful and blue. I could “talk” with some of my fellows, if we come from the same mountain, then we are one, if we are not too far, then we can talk, because actually they are me.

There were two days I couldn’t forget. The day when I fell in the sea, and the day I was pumped out of the sea.

Not only me,  also everything around me, water, my green friends, fishes, shells, stones. We all went up by an irresistible power, everything became dark. We were in a huge black box. Yeah, it was a ship. You know, I learned so many human languages from the days I am out of the sea. Also I learned that my green friend has a name seaweed.

Let’s get back to the story, so the ship drove for a long time, we don’t know where were we going, some fishes started to die, and suddenly we flied out. It was so cold, and there were huge amount of seagulls waiting there to pick up the fish and clams. And I became one part of the beach.


There is no fish, but still some shells. There are full of human, they have different smells. Most of the time the laugh and run, sometimes they cry, once the salty water even dropped on me. I wished I could walk like them, but I can’t. Luckily I am always not too far from the sea, sometimes I even went back. But I haven’t talk for a long time, I wish one of the wave would bring some of me, or even one of me, next to me. Then we could talk.