SHELTER SHELLS
Habitat
A Protective Habitat
Shelter Shells are innovative artificial reef structures designed to recreate the protective complexity of natural underwater habitats.
Built with textured, porous surfaces and small internal refuge spaces, Shelter Shells provide the kinds of hiding places that marine life depends on. These features:
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Encourage colonisation by invertebrates
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Create interstitial spaces for juvenile fish
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Offer protection from larger predators
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Mimic the ecological function of natural woody debris and rocky crevices
Design
Designed to Work With Existing Infrastructure
​Shelter Shell arrays are suspended or chain-mounted, meaning they can be installed directly onto:
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Pontoons
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Pilings
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Seawalls
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Other marine infrastructure
This allows for meaningful ecological enhancement without altering channel shape or navigation routes.
Technology
3D Printing & Casting
We use the latest 3D printing and casting techniques pushing manufacturing possibilities forward.
Built to Last
Built from marine-grade stainless steel and specially formulated concrete, Shelter Shells are engineered to perform in both freshwater and saltwater environments for decades.
Habitat Engineering
Micro-textures, pores and cavities are built directly into each unit to encourage colonisation from day one.
Shelter Shells offer a unique solution to provide submerged aquatic habitats to enhance biodiversity and abundance of fish stocks and a wide range of beneficial aquatic life. The inspiration for the systems is founded in the biomimicry of habitat forms, found in natural aquatic ecosystems and particularly the complex crevices, rock pools and hiding places which are so essential to many types of fish, bivalves and other aquatic life as they breed, shelter, and grow.
These underwater shelters are inspired by the beautiful forms of shells and the complex form, texture, and apertures which they provide. Underwater Shelters magnify these benefits, expanding the shell like form to impressive proportions typically 300-500mm in diameter to suit a wider range of larger aquatic life.
The surface of the Shelter is highly textured and artistically sculpted to provide a complex surface with is both compelling in its design as well as attractive to aquatic life with its rough and crenulated surface.
The system has several configurations for example against a quay wall, it may be configured to provide top and bottom quarter sections mounted on a suspending chain and oriented in half shell form with one top quarter and one bottom quarter to lay flat against a quay wall.
