Key Biscayne, Florida 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Depth Chart
How the Water Becomes Wood
A chart is a stack of flat sheets until the water's real soundings tell it what shape to take.
- SurveyReal bathymetric sounding data sets every contour line before a single cut is made.
- CutEach depth band is laser-cut from its own sheet of Baltic birch, up to nine layers deep.
- StainWater layers are stained by hand, reading darker the deeper the water runs.
- StackThe sheets are registered and stacked in sequence, and the bed's true shape rises out of the wood.
- EtchDepths and place names are burned into the grain itself, never printed on it.
- FrameA solid Baltic birch frame and acrylic glass finish the piece, ready to hang.
Key Biscayne in stacked Baltic birch, 13.5 by 31 inches: Miami's island escape carved one depth contour per layer, from Bear Cut to the lighthouse and out across the flats.
The key ends at Cape Florida, where the 1825 lighthouse stands as the oldest structure in Miami-Dade County, and just beyond it begins one of Florida's strangest landmarks: Stiltsville, the last wooden houses perched on pilings over the open flats of Biscayne Bay, survivors of a shantytown that once ran to the horizon. Between lighthouse and mainland, Crandon's beach curves for miles and No Name Harbor fills with rafted boats every weekend. On the chart, the flats spread bright and shallow around the island with the channels engraved through them like paths.
Each contour is a separate laser-cut sheet, stacked by hand and engraved, behind acrylic glass in a solid Baltic birch frame.
Fifteen minutes from downtown and a full world away, which is the entire point.
The engraving spans Bear Cut and Virginia Key, Crandon, the village, Cape Florida, and Stiltsville's flats. The wider coast runs on the Key Largo to Fort Lauderdale chart and Miami Beach.
- 13.5 × 31 in
- Solid Baltic birch frame
- Acrylic glass front, ready to hang
- Free next-business-day shipping on orders placed by 2 PM EST
- 14-day returns
Live from the water