When I was a small and intensely young person, my parents would drive me down the California coastline to a town called Carmel near Monterrey Bay, where we would hang out on the beach and frolic amongst the slowly rotting kelp and aggressive sea gulls, eat burgers at Flaherty’s Seafood Restaurant (which specializes in seafood, not land food – I was five), and weave in and out of various art galleries until we were tired enough to return to our hotel and fall asleep.

Image courtesy citi-data.com
One time down in Carmel …

When you’re a designer, having problems can be a good thing. Well, I suppose I ought to be clear that I am talking about certain kinds of problems (for example, not even one of Jay-Z’s 99 problems would qualify). FORM US WITH LOVE, a design collective based in Sweden, turned a problem they were having with an echoing studio space into a partnership with a woodwool cement manufacturer. Träullit is a 20-man factory located in Österbymo, “little more than a fleck on the map between Stockholm and Malmö” and it’s the only manufacturer of woodwool cement …

Never have I felt even the slightest desire to slurp down an oyster.  Not once have I looked said bivalve in the eye*, so to speak, and been able to overcome my not inconsiderable revulsion long enough to taste one.  It seems however, that I’m in the minority; many of my dearest friends are completely mad for oysters and eat them in copious quantities whenever they can get their hands on them. 
I bring this up because tasting good (to other people, at least) is a positive characteristic of oysters.  Another positive …