That's where Miles Lightwood's Project Shellter comes in - he's hoping to design 3D printed shells for use in the pet industry, and is seeking ideas from interested artists and designers.

3D-printed shells turn hermit crabs into beautiful walking cities Aki Inomata's gorgeous, crystalline buildings and skylines are a lot better than that painted shell you bought in the beach shop.

Hermit crabs are born without shells and the soft little guys have to find one in the ocean to make their home in order to survive. As they grow larger, they need a new shell that will fit.

Since then, she created a number of 3D-printed hermit crab shells in a broad range of architectural styles — from New York City skyscrapers to tiny windmills reflecting the Zaanse Schans ...

She used 3D printing technology to design crystalline shells inspired by architecture to illustrate the concept. First, Inomata CT scanned unoccupied shells abandoned by the hermit crabs to gain ...

A project started in 2011 called Project Shellter aimed to use Makerbot printers to create perfect little 3-D printed shells, and has successfully made a number of homes for stricken crabs.

Artist Aki Inomata from Japan has created a collection of 3D printed shells out of clear plastic for her project, “Why Not Hand Over a “Shelter” to Hermit Crabs?”.

Hermit crabs, you see, don’t actually make their own shells. Carapaces, yes, but the shells they live in are scavenged from sea snails, nautiluses, and other miscellaneous mollusks.

That’s what Project Shellter is all about: using DIY 3-D printers and crowdsourced design to offer domestic hermit crabs a wider selection of custom shells.

If you have access to a MakerBot 3D printer, you can craft your own crab home and upload the details to design site Thingiverse. Who knows, your creation just might please the discriminating hermits.

Despite the curb appeal of her creations, getting the hermit crabs to inhabit the stylish shells required clever urban planning from Inomata. "At first I thought hermit crabs could fit into any ...