Elephant Tusks

Elephant Tusks – Scale, Memory and Matter

Located on the coast of the United Kingdom, Elephant Tusks is a sculptural installation with a powerful symbolic charge. It consists of two curved structures made entirely from SterlingOSB Zero, evoking the tusks of an elephant emerging from the ground like fossil remains—traces of a natural world silenced by human action.

These monumental forms are supported by a series of Y-shaped sculptural columns representing human figures. These bodies, in a state of tension, physically bear the weight of the tusks—an image that powerfully reflects the role of humans as both the cause and witness of ecological destruction. Here, scale becomes a narrative language: the human sculptures range from 3.5 to 16 meters in height, creating a spatial progression where visitors experience a transformation from the minimal to the monumental. This shift in size is not only visual—it reflects the growing impact of humankind on the natural world.
The structure symbolizes that not every person carries the same burden—each one bears a different weight in life.
SterlingOSB Zero is not just the structural backbone of the project; it is also its conceptual and aesthetic foundation. Its warm, organic texture and raw visual quality reinforce the allegorical nature of the installation, while highlighting a critical yet constructive view of architecture, material use, and environmental responsibility.

The components are designed for CNC cutting, allowing for precision in the modular repetition of the human forms, and assembled without toxic adhesives. This dry-assembly strategy ensures ease of transport, mounting, and disassembly, making the piece suitable for reinstallation in different coastal sites as a traveling monument of awareness.

This is not a building, nor a pavilion in the traditional sense. It is an open intervention—exposed to wind, fog, and landscape. It speaks through form and material, turning SterlingOSB Zero into both message and medium: a physical structure and a symbolic act.

Elephant Tusks approaches scale not only as a question of proportion, but as a narrative device. The small and the large coexist in a single story—the story of humanity bearing, quite literally, the weight of its own history. A piece to be seen from afar and walked within, it transforms material and form into living memory.

Surface: 920 m2 Location: Eastbourne is a town and non-metropolitan borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England.
Project Name: Elephant Tusks – Scale, Memory, and Matter
Location: United Kingdom Coast
Approximate Area of Intervention: 1,800 to 2,200 m²
Structural Height: 3.5 to 16 meters
Typology: Ephemeral sculptural and architectural installation
Main Material: Aluminum, Concrete, Metal and wood - SterlingOSB Zero (formaldehyde-free oriented strand board)
Structural System: Dry assembly with CNC-cut components
Status: Installative project – itinerant and adaptable

The Elephant Tusks installation consists of two large curved structures that evoke elephant tusks emerging from the ground. These monumental forms, made entirely of SterlingOSB Zero, serve both symbolic and structural roles. They rest on sculptural Y-shaped columns representing human figures in tension, literally bearing the weight of the ecological history carried by the work.

Scale is a fundamental narrative component: the visitor's journey evolves from a human, intimate scale to sculptural monumentality. The spatial progression generates an emotionally immersive and critical experience. The human-like sculptures range from 3.5 to 16 meters in height, emphasizing the transition from the personal to the collective.

Their solid concrete bases with metal beams support a maritime channel on concrete pilotis, lifting the structure above sea level to create a sort of floodable port with an elevated lookout. Steel cables secure the wooden roof structure with a metal frame, transmitting forces through the sculptural figures, which simultaneously resist the strong coastal winds and support the roof. Its variable and non-continuous structure symbolizes that not every person carries the same burden—each one bears a different weight in life.

The structures are designed with CNC-cut modular components, allowing for transportation, assembly, and disassembly without toxic adhesives, enabling use in multiple coastal sites. The dry assembly system also supports a reversible installation with minimal impact on the natural landscape.

Elephant Tusks is not a building in the traditional sense, but a sculptural intervention open to wind, mist, and time. It is architecture without walls, where form and matter become message and support. The warm and raw texture of SterlingOSB Zero reinforces the work's discourse on change, memory, and repair.

Architect: Víctor Alfonso Montañez
Collaboration with architect Carolina Vanesa Busi
Teacher: Architect Patricia Rodrigues Anidos