A Hermit Crab Had Outgrown Its Shell… This Artist’s Solution Is A Masterpiece

LifeBuzz I Design & Architecture

The world’s biggest cities in the world have turned into shells for hermit crabs. With the help of 3D printing, Japanese artist Aki Inomata, took the urban landscapes and recreated them into mini versions to be used as shells. The small hermit crabs change the shells as they grow too big for them. Oftentimes, the crabs use shells of snails as protection from predators and to keep them from drying out. If they cannot find shells, they will use wood and garbage to survive.

Inomata’s architecture project Why Not Hand Over a 'Shelter' to Hermit Crabs? correlates to how humans also migrate and identify themselves. “I am Japanese but I can change my nationality to French.” Her goal is that the crabs like people will exchange their homes when they outgrow them and move to another famous city on the globe. Now if only human migration was that easy.