Felicia Neuhof

Felicia Neuhof is a designer and materials researcher based in Providence, Rhode Island, where she founded Shellf Life. She grew up in Vermont and developed the process behind her work as an M.Arch thesis candidate at the Rhode Island School of Design, starting on her kitchen stove: transforming post-consumer seafood shells into an architectural-grade material without cement, resin or a kiln.

Her practice sits between material research and design, and treats waste as misplaced genius. Shells collected from local restaurants and aquaculture partners leave the Shellf Life microlab in Providence’s Valley neighbourhood as tiles, surfaces and objects, among them the Ripple basin, each one handmade in Providence. The process is carbon-capturing, and it keeps her work tied to the coastal communities whose shells feed it.