Isle of Skye & Raasay

Working with residents and community groups on addressing a season of polluted seas, a series of programmes focus on transitioning from salmon farming to alternative aqua-cultures. The Station expands the possibilities of seaweeds and bivalves as protagonists to care for the shores in Scotland and beyond. Its goal is to activate collective usership of the coast and envision another future for the tidal commons.

Cultural shifts allow us to reimagine entanglements with coastal histories and ecologies. In parallel to the intertidal table, the Station runs pedagogical programmes to unlearn modern approaches to food systems. One of them, Collective Coast, compiled episodes about how the coast of the isles of Skye and Raasay holds and records the memories of multiple generations portraying the changing relationships with the waters around the islands. Photo: Jordan Young.

Relearning

Restaurants across Skye and Raasay have removed farmed salmon from their menu and incorporated bivalves and seaweeds in their dishes—ingredients that can regenerate, filter and oxygenate seawater while breathing. Through new cooking apprenticeship programmes set up in collaboration with the local high school in Portree, restaurants are also training the island’s next generation of climavore cooks to work closely with chefs, foragers, divers, bakers, brewers and kitchen teams. In parallel, the Station assembles memories, recipes, songs through radio, archival photographs and film footage, and captures coastal experiences through Gaelic place names, folklore and traditions—key knowledge for a shared understanding of what the coast once was and what has the potential to be.

1 / 7CLIMAVORE’s pedagogical ambition includes ways to reconnect people with local ingredients, and make small-scale farming and foraging food from the coast appealing to the younger generations. Since 2017, the Station has collaborated with restaurants across Skye and Raasay that removed farmed salmon from their menu and incorporated climavore dishes featuring bivalves and seaweeds to promote ways of eating with and for the coast. Through new cooking apprenticeship programmes we set up with Portree High School, restaurants trained the next generation of climavore cooks on the island so that they can start introducing a new coastal imaginary. Photo: Jordan Young.

Download CLIMAVORE Apprentices Recipe Book

Regrowing

Conceived as a sea orchard, a pilot for a community-owned intertidal farm uses the coast as a space for sourcing food while cultivating multiple ecologies. Through collaboration with marine scientists CLIMAVORE promotes a modular system to grow multiple low-trophic species—those that generally feed on plankton and are at the bottom of the food chain. This system on the intertidal zone is accessible on foot, and consists of ropes, trestles and tidal gardens for different species of seaweeds, sea vegetables and bivalves that regenerate ocean water, absorb carbon emissions, contribute to food security, and strengthen food supply.

1 / 3Conceived as a ‘sea orchard’, this small-scale typology provides an alternative food growing method to intensive open-net salmon farms without need for feed, medication, or expensive infrastructure. These sea gardens aim to run as self-sufficient community-owned intertidal farms. The Station has been trialling how to grow multiple low-trophic species while cultivating their habitats. Accessible on foot, this production system consists of ropes and nets made out of plant-fibres, imprinted stones, trestles and clearings for seaweeds, sea vegetables, marsh greens and bivalves to coexist.

Rebuilding

Cement is the second most consumed product in the world after water and a major contributor to climate breakdown. Sourcing materials based on waste streams of intertidal origin is a way to connect the food and construction industries. Learning from experiments CLIMAVORE developed in New Orleans, Taiwan and Los Angeles, the Station has worked with fabricators, chemists and material scientists to prototype a new material that replaces cement and petrochemical resins with crushed seashells collected from CLIMAVORE restaurants. Partnering with the West Highland College for their Construction Skills Course, a new syllabus encourages learning from historic techniques for tabby concrete, seaweed thatching and insulation, and shell composites, connecting food-webs with wall building, exploring ways to construct CLIMAVORE.

1 / 10CLIMAVORE has worked with fabricators and material scientists to prototype a stable composite that replaces cement and petrochemical resins with the seashells the Station collects, cleans, sorts and crushes from climavore restaurants. Instead of externalising it, food waste needs to be metabolised, incorporated into the nourishment process to recirculate it. The unique tile pieces, made entirely of reconfigured waste shells and water, have led to setting up a workshop in Skye. Handcrafted pieces are used to upscale the production and fabrication facilities in the short-term in order to reach a point where it becomes an accessible household material that can be used as an everyday kitchen or bathroom tile.

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