Integration is a process in which one maintains individuality while adapting to stay relevant and alive. In the case of migration, it is to make space for the new without losing the familiar, both for the welcoming society as well as for the migrant. For cities, it means becoming more attractive while staying unique. Adaptation is a dialectic movement between transformation and conservation. Florø and Saint-Nazaire alike depend on their industrial activity to survive economically, and therefore on the know-how of their working migrants. But to keep being attractive to skilled migrants, the two cities need to adapt while being faithful to what makes them unique. In both cities, adaptation is not only human and economic, it is also an essential feature of their geography, of the ocean and its tide, the ever changing weather, the uninterrupted movement of people, objects, and elements.

The climate of the Northern sea with its extreme weather has inspired us the “Storm” vases that bend the flowers like the coastal pine that adapt to the wind and find its place in a horizontal position.

Both immaterial and material adaptation gives new shape to the existing. We wanted to illustrate this in the Storm vases. Our first idea was to make these vases out of bended steel pipes, inspired by the local oil based industry, which is sustaining the local community of Florø. From a shipbuilding culture, Florø have had to learn how to be proud of working with pipes. Great strength is used to bend these to adapt them to the need of their usage. In the case of the Storm vases, it is the flowers that are taking the shape of bended glass.