Israeli designer Shira Keret used a water jet cutter to erode marble blocks into these plates and vessels.
Natural water erosion usually takes thousands of years, but Shira Keret sped-up the process to just a few seconds by carving her Monolith collection of carrera marble homeware with a high-pressure water jet cutting machine.
"When tweaking the industrial process of water jet cutting the stream will carve it's way to the bottom, not necessarily in a straight line," said Keret. "This way, it takes a matter of seconds to mimic the natural process and morphology in small scale."
The serving plates and vessels started as basic rectangles and cylinders cut on the machine to Keret's specifications. She then began to vary the speed of the machine so the water created jagged edges and patterns across the stone, which were different each time.
"The machine's variable factors are the cutting speed and the water jet stream intensity," Keret told Dezeen. "By increasing the cutting speed I was able to increase the erosion effect on the marble. I changed the speed several times in order to get the results I was hoping for."
"After the cutting process was complete I was left with surfaces, cylinders and other forms that were loyal to the drawing at one end and randomly carved at the other," she said.
Keret then took the pieces to a stone carver to be finessed and shaped into useable tableware.
Some are streaked with small ridges while others have large chunks missing where the cutter has completely worn the stone away.
The project was exhibited at the Young Creatives exhibition during Tokyo Designers Week last month.
Photos are by Hagar Cygler.
More from the designer below:
Water erosion is a process that happens in nature, it can take thousands of years for water to carve its way through rock. The streams intensity and the type of rock will determine the shapes.
When tweaking the industrial process of water jet cutting the stream will carve it's way to the bottom, not necessarily in a straight line. This way, it takes a matter of seconds to mimic the natural process and morphology in small scale.
Although the technical drawing for the machine are 2D and extremely basic, this process makes the final shapes unpredictable, organic and one of a kind.
The project includes a set of carrara marble objects: serving plates and vessels that examines the morphology of rock shaped by water.
Monolith is a new project by product designer Shira Keret. The project was first presented at Tokyo designers week in October 2013.