Spotted: Silk production is a multi-billion-dollar industry, but silk still only makes up under 0.2 per cent of the global fibre market. While natural silk is considered a more sustainable fibre than synthetics because of its biodegradability and renewability, silkworm disease and the increased availability of cheaper manmade alternatives have hit the industry hard in recent decades.
Hoping to revolutionise the silk industry and expand the material’s capabilities is Parisian-based company Sericyne. With its patented technology, Sericyne’s silkworms can directly produce many different shapes instead of cocoons.
Before they arrive in the factory, Sericyne’s silkworms are raised for 30 days by local silk growers. In the factory, the silkworms are placed on moulded supports, where they spin silk into the two or three-dimensional shapes on which they are placed. The 100 per cent natural material produced and collected is a shiny and non-woven fabric. And because each fibre spun is approximately one kilometre long, the final product is also extremely strong.
Sericyne’s craftsmen then harvest this silk, which can then be dyed, embroidered, pleated, hot stamped, or embossed to enhance its appearance. On its website, the company offers a range of products, from beauty items to candle holders and soft bedding.
The company has reignited sericulture in France and has trained more than 15 silkworm breeders and is also launching a mulberry plantation programme to revive the industry – with mulberry leaves being the sole nutrition source for silkworms.
The textiles industry is a hub of innovation. Springwise has also spotted a silk-based alternative that is biodegradable, safe to digest, and easily manufactured, as well as a new technology for creating natural fibres.
Japanese designer Yuma Kano has created a decorative material that resembles terrazzo from wood, foliage, bark, soil and seeds that was shown at Milan design week.
Kano, who showed his work together with fellow designer Sho Ota as part of the Touch Wood exhibition at the Alcova venue, says the idea behind the project was to find value in not just lumber, but all of the forest.
ForestBank was shown at Alcova in Milan
After gathering unusable wood and other forest materials, he mixes them with a water-based acrylic resin that does not use any reactive mineral bases or volatile organic solvents.
“In the Japanese forest industry, these small pieces of wood are a waste material,” Kano told Dezeen. “I wanted to reuse the waste.”
The material is made from waste wood
The technique invented by Kano creates a material with patterns that vary depending on the angle and depth of the cut into it, as well as on what ingredients – such as foliage, wood, bark, soil and seeds – were combined.
It means that the furniture made from the trademarked ForestBank material might also change how it looks as it grows older.
“The green leaves mixed in change to orange and brown as the seasons change,” Kano said.
“In addition, earth from the forest floor can be mixed in, adding browns and blacks, you can see the complex patterns of the cross sections of roots and seeds ordinarily hidden in the earth, and take notice of the different coloring that different species of trees have.”
The finished material resembles terrazzo
Kano has made a collection of furniture from the material that includes a table, seats and a clothes hanger, and said the pieces can eventually be recycled to create more ForestBank material.
“I’m actually reusing the dust from the original pieces for future pieces,” he explained.
A sculptural hanger was on show at Touch Wood
The focus of the Touch Wood exhibition in Milan was to showcase ways of using wood that would have otherwise gone to waste.
Here, Kano’s furniture pieces were juxtaposed with Ota’s furniture collection, called Surfaced, which is made using wood that was scheduled to be discarded from workshops and factories.
The designers hoped that the exhibition would showcase designs that mass-production cannot achieve.
“The material can show the uniqueness of each little piece of wood,” Kano said.
A chair has a back made from ForestBank
This year’s Milan design week featured a number of projects by emerging designers. We looked at five emerging designers showing in Salone del Mobile’s Salone Satellite section and rounded up ten standout installations in Milan as part of our coverage.
Touch Wood was on show from 17 to 23 April 2023 as part of Milan design week. See Dezeen Events Guide for more architecture and design events around the world.
Copenhagen-based Natural Material Studio and designer Zuzanna Skurka have created an installation at Milan design week from soft bio textiles made from surplus bricks.
Called Brick Textiles, the project is on display at Alcova – a travelling exhibition platform for independent design that is held at a different disused site in Milan each year.
Natural Material Studio and Zuzanna Skurka created textiles from waste bricks
Natural Material Studio worked with Polish designer and researcher Zuzanna Skurka to create the textiles from highly porous repurposed bricks that were classified as waste after demolition projects.
“Rule one is, you should work with materials that are already there,” studio founder Bonnie Hvillum told Dezeen in Milan.
The project is on display at Alcova in Milan
The textiles were made from a combination of crushed bricks bonded together with Procel – a home-compostable, protein-based bioplastic of natural softener and pigments developed by Natural Material Studio.
Featuring a distinctly reddish hue, the textiles were divided into large, roughly-cut slabs that hang suspended from the roof on metal bars in a room at Alcova to form a dramatic installation illuminated by skylights.
Swirly patterns made by the crushed bricks characterise the textile
Natural Material Studio and Skurka drew upon traditional weaving techniques to create the textile, which was made by incorporating bricks and Procel into a “biomaterial matrix”, according to Hvillum.
The material owes its strength, colour and texture to the bricks, which create unique swirly patterns on each slab that are produced randomly during the “fluid casting process”, she explained.
Hvillum described the product as a “biomaterial matrix”
“We were very curious about this question of how can architecture be flexible, more simple and translucent even? added Hvillum. “It’s all the opposite aspects of a brick.”
“When we think of brick it’s like a solid, rigid, structural wall,” she continued. “But how can we make more flexible and fluid architecture today?”
Examples of the bricks the designers used are positioned underneath the textiles
Holes were pierced into the corners of the slabs so that they can be linked together.
While the water-resistant textile is already being used by interior architects as room dividers, Hvillum said that the studio hopes that one day it could form whole walls.
“The way we build and how we live in the built environment shapes us, so if we can build a more flexible and organic biomaterial, we want to start the exploration of what that experience is,” she continued.
This year, the Alcova exhibition takes place at a former slaughterhouse in Porta Vittoria. The formation of brick-based textiles hangs from metal bars where meat once hung at the site.
“There’s something funny and a little bit rough about that image,” acknowledged Hvillum.
The textiles hang where meat was once suspended in the former slaughterhouse
The materials specialist explained that Brick Textiles intends to salvage something from the past and propose fresh ways of thinking about an existing resource.
“It’s new materials we’re developing, so we still don’t know everything about them,” she reflected. “And that’s the beauty and honesty of it.”
Established in 2018, Natural Material Studio has created a number of repurposed materials for wide-ranging projects. These include crockery for a seafood restaurant made from leftover scallop shells and clothing created with algae, clay and foam.
Brick Textiles is on display at Alcova from 17 to 23 April 2023 as part of Milandesignweek.See our Milandesignweek 2023 guide on Dezeen Events Guide for information about the many other exhibitions, installations and talks taking place throughout the week.
In the lead-up to Milan design week, we have rounded up eight residential and hotel interiors in the Italian city that are united by their use of muted colours and diverse materials.
As the Salone del Mobile furniture fair is set to kick off next week, alongside its surrounding Fuorisalone events programme, these interiors provide a glimpse into some of the city’s design-led apartments, homes and hotels.
Among the featured projects in Italy’s industrial capital is a hybrid home and office space in a former dental studio, a home set within a 200-year-old palazzo and a nunnery-turned-hotel.
This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides curated visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring accent walls, bookshelves and terracotta tiles.
Photo is by Carola Ripamonti
Teorema Milanese, Italy, by Marcante-Testa
With the exception of removing a partition wall to create an open-plan living and dining area, Italian design studio Marcante-Testa looked to maintain the classic layout of this apartment in a 1960s building on Corso Sempione during its renovation.
The studio decorated the apartment in muted colours and used pale grey cipollino tirreno marble as a “carpet” across the sitting area. Elsewhere, a pale lemon-hued cabinet functions as a partition while the bathroom is clad in a maroon-streaked salomè marble.
Find out more about Teorema Milanese ›
Out of the Blue, Italy, by AIM
Italian design studio AIM made liberal use of the colour grey when renovating the interior of this 150-square-metre home in Milan. The concealed staircase that forms the centre of the renovation is framed in the distinctive bluey-grey hue.
And in the dining area, the home’s wooden flooring was decorated with a painted rectangle that aims to visually zone and separate the space from its surroundings. Brass fixtures complement its grey hue, which can also be found across light fixings and ornaments.
Find out more about Out of the Blue ›
Photo is by Giovanni Emilio Galanello
Private apartment, Italy, by Untitled Architecture
A cylindrical staircase and metal structural elements are the focal features of this small apartment, designed by local studio Untitled Architecture.
The apartment has a minimal paired-back aesthetic, with white-painted walls and bleached wood elements contrasted against tiny pops of colour introduced through blue-hued grouting and balustrades.
Find out more about the private apartment ›
Photo is by Michele Filippi
CPR Apartment, Italy, by +R Piuerre
Housed in a former dental studio, this hybrid home and office belongs to a young remote-working couple and was designed to combine Milanese modernism with Nordic design.
Two areas of the apartment were colour-coded according to their function, with the bedroom, office and entryway covered in tones of grey while the living area and kitchen are marked by a bright yellow hue. The spaces are connected by a white-painted staircase constructed from sheets of folded metal.
Find out more about CPR Apartment ›
Room Mate Giulia, Italy, by Patricia Urquiola
Pistachio green was used to colour the dado wall panelling and soft furnishings inside this suite in Milan’s Room Mate Giulia hotel decorated by Spanish designer Patricia Urquiola. Meanwhile, the upper half of the walls and the ceilings are covered in white wallpaper with a geometric grid pattern.
Industrial materials and furnishings, including a galvanised metal shelving unit, were repurposed as boutique storage solutions and room partitions.
Find out more about Room Mate Hotels ›
Casa Salvatori, Italy, by Elissa Ossino Studio
This home, designed by Milanese architecture practice Elissa Ossino Studio for the head of Italian stone company Salvatori, brings together marble furnishings and flecked terrazzo floors to link the interior with Salvatori’s stone manufacturing history.
Dulled hues of blue, peach, green and yellow were carried through the interior of the home, which is set within a 200-year-old palazzo in the city’s Brera district.
Find out more about Casa Salvatori ›
Photo is by Giovanna Silva
House with an iron staircase, Italy, by Roberto Murgia and Valentina Ravara
An iron staircase with a zig-zagging framework reminiscent of structural trusses was installed along one wall of this apartment in the Isola district, designed by Italian architects Roberto Murgia and Valentina Ravara.
The floor of the main living space features a geometric design, achieved through the use of hexagonal cement tiles. Each of the tiles is handmade and coloured in shades of light blue and white to provide tonal variation.
Find out more about House with an iron staircase ›
Photo is by Alberto Strada
The Sister Hotel, Italy, by Quincoces-Dragò
Housed in a former 16th-century nunnery in Milan’s city centre, The Sister Hotel features decadent yet eclectic interiors by architecture studio Quincoces-Dragò.
The studio looked to grandiose private townhouses when designing the interiors, opting for moody shades of navy blue and deep green within the bedrooms. Furnishings introduce brighter colours into the suites, including a velvet-upholstered orange sofa.
Find out more about The Sister Hotel ›
This is the latest in our lookbooks series, which provides visual inspiration from Dezeen’s archive. For more inspiration see previous lookbooks featuring accent walls, bookshelves and terracotta tiles.
Spotted: Carbon fibre composites are widely used substances, appearing in aircraft and spacecraft parts, wind turbine blades, bicycle frames, and many other components that need to be strong but light. However, most carbon fibres are difficult to recycle and repurpose. This is particularly problematic in the wind turbine industry. Given that, from 2030 onwards, around 5,700 wind turbines will be dismantled each year in Europe alone, a recycling solution needs to be found.
Fairmat has devised a way to recycle all types of carbon fibre composites. Its process is largely automated and uses robotics and machine learning to deliver precision and efficiency. The proprietary process breaks waste up into small pieces that keep the original resin and carbon fibre together. Fairmat then creates compounds from the waste and coats them with a small amount of additional resin to form a new matrix. The resulting compound is then moulded according to customer needs and hardened.
Ben Saada, Fairmat CEO, explains: “Recycling advanced materials like carbon fibre composites is one of the strongest actions we can take to accelerate the decarbonisation of the manufacturing sector.”
Although the process is still under development, Fairmat has already secured more than 35 per cent of European carbon fibre scrap supply and opened its first factory. The company has also secured €34 million in a series A funding round and hopes to eventually expand into the US, Spain, and Germany.
The growing mountain of used wind turbine blades sitting in landfills is encouraging a number of innovations targeting this waste. Some of those recently spotted by Springwise include blades made from a composite material that can be more easily recycled and reused, a bladeless turbine, and a bioplastic blade material that can be turned into gummy bears.
Spotted: In order to mitigate the impacts of climate change, it is likely that we will need to scale up direct air capture (DAC) technology and carbon storage. In DAC, air is run through filters and sorbents to separate out the CO2. The filters are then heated to release the CO2, which is either stored underground or used in products such as building materials and fuels. As you might expect, this process often requires significant energy and incurs expense.
Now, new research from a team at Lehigh University, has found a way to make the DAC process more efficient. Most current DAC filtering processes use amine-based sorbents (materials derived from ammonia, which contains nitrogen). In this study, the researchers added copper to the amines, which allowed the sorbent to filter out three times as much CO2 as existing products – lowering costs and improving efficiency.
On top of the improved efficiency, the addition of copper meant that when the material came into contact with seawater, it converted the captured CO2 into a harmless alkaline material almost identical to baking soda. This opens up the possibility of storing captured CO2 in the ocean, which could allow DAC plants to be built in a much wider range of locations.
The researchers point out that there is still a long way to go before this technology is sustainable. For one thing, ammonia is derived from fossil fuels. Another concern is that no one knows what the effect would be of large volumes of baking soda entering the oceans each year. But despite these notes of caution, the research is an exciting development as countries explore the practicalities of deploying DAC technology.
There are currently just a handful of DAC facilities around the world, but the technology has an important role to play in the reduction of atmospheric CO2. Springwise has also spotted a method for turning atmospheric carbon into solid carbon, and a process for permanently storing CO2 in rocks deep underground.
Researchers from the University of Chicago have invented a cladding material that changes colour to help with heating or cooling and could be retrofitted to improve buildings’ energy efficiency.
The composite material consists of several different layers including copper foil, plastic and graphene, and based on the outside temperature can change its infrared colour – the colour it appears under thermal imaging.
At the same time, it also changes the amount of infrared heat it absorbs or emits from the building. On hot days, the material appears yellow under thermal imaging, indicating that it is emitting more heat, while on cold days it appears purple because it is retaining that heat.
Top: the material appears yellow under thermal imaging when in heating mode and purple when cooling. Above: a layer of copper is deposited on a film to trigger heating mode
When used on a facade – for example in the form of shingles – the material could potentially reduce the need for heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) and lower a building’s overall energy consumption.
“We’ve essentially figured out a low-energy way to treat a building like a person; you add a layer when you’re cold and take off a layer when you’re hot,” said materials engineer Po-Chun Hsu from the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, who led the research.
“This kind of smart material lets us maintain the temperature in a building without huge amounts of energy.”
Cladding responds to temperature like a chameleon
The University of Chicago describes the material as “chameleon-like” because it can change its colour in response to the outside temperature.
At a chosen trigger temperature, the material uses a tiny amount of electricity to either deposit copper onto a thin film or strip it away.
This chemical reaction effectively transforms the material’s central layer – a water-based electrolyte solution – into solid copper. The low-emitting copper helps to retain heat and warm the interior of a building, while the high-emitting aqueous layer keeps a building cool.
The layer of water-based electrolytes also helps to make the material non-flammable, and the researchers describe the switching process from metal to liquid and back again as “stable, non-volatile, efficient and mechanically flexible”.
“Once you switch between states, you don’t need to apply any more energy to stay in either state,” said Hsu. “So for buildings where you don’t need to switch between these states very frequently, it’s really using a very negligible amount of electricity.”
Material could reduce energy consumption by eight per cent
As part of their study, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, the researchers also created models to test the energy savings that could be achieved by applying their material to buildings in 15 US cities, representing 15 climate zones.
In areas that experienced a high variation in weather, they found the material could save 8.4 per cent of a building’s annual HVAC energy consumption on average. At the same time, the material relied on just 0.2 per cent of the building’s total electricity for its operation.
To slash these emissions, the material could be used to retrofit poorly insulated or historic buildings and improve their energy efficiency, as the researchers suggest it would be more convenient to install than insulation.
However, several of its components – including the monolayer graphene and gold microgrid used as transparent conductive layers – are currently still expensive and complicated to manufacture.
The researchers have so far created only six-centimetre-wide patches of the material but imagine assembling them like shingles to form larger sheets.
With the watery layer active, the material is a dark white colour, which turns a coppery brown when the copper layer is active.
But the material could also be tweaked to show different colours by adding a layer of pigments behind the transparent watery layer.
Another approach to keeping buildings cool is to paint them white. For this purpose, researchers at Purdue University recently developed the “whitest paint on record”, which reflects 98 per cent of sunlight.
Spanish architecture and interior design studio Isern Serra kept to a material palette of concrete, quartz and stainless steel to create this pared-back office for Reisinger Studio
Located in the Poblenou neighbourhood in Barcelona, digital artist Andrés Reisinger’s studio is surrounded by several other creative’s offices and is designed to reflect the artist’s minimalist, dreamlike style.
The Studio Reisinger office is designed to reflect the artist’s minimalist aesthetic
“The concept behind the interiors of my studio was to create a space that complements and doesn’t compete with the uplifting spirit of my work,” Reisinger told Dezeen.
“I wanted the studio to be like a canvas, with a kind of identity that I could play with,” he added. “The space is inspired by my work’s aesthetic, with seemingly surreal details amidst the light and bright studio.”
Isern Serra left its raw concrete pillars intact
Purchased as an empty shell, the Barcelona-based team decided to leave parts of the original space intact such as the concrete pillars while the ceiling was left exposed.
Natural tones and textures were introduced through paint and flooring to create an airy and monochromatic yet soothing feel.
A stainless steel kitchen is on the ground floor
“First the colour and texture of the walls were chosen,” Isern Serra told Dezeen. “They are finished with a quartz-based paint in the form of a paste,” he added.
“A natural finishing of micro-cement for the flooring was chosen to have the same tone and textured effect,” Serra said.
A concrete table can be used for dining and working
The team then went about filling the space with office equipment and furnishings, paying close attention to sourcing locally made items that reflect the sculptural work of Reisinger Studio.
A large concrete table, which functions as a workspace and dining table was made on-site and stands in the middle of the studio.
It was produced in a hue that sits between millennial pink and beige – a colour that has become synonymous with Reisinger’s work. A similar shade can be seen throughtout Reisinger and architect Alba de la Fuente’s virtual residence Winter House.
Around the table is a set of chrome metal stools custom-made by designer Julia Esque that complement the stainless steel staircase which curls up the floor above.
Also in the area below the mezzanine, is a kitchen made entirely of stainless steel that features an integrated hydraulic push-to-open storage system.
A millennial pink colour palette was used throughout
On the upper floor, which is fronted by glass, Andrés Reisinger has a private office with a wooden desk for meetings. Plush pink seating here adds a touch of warmth. A separate shower and toilet are also situated on this floor.
“The goal was to create a space that would inspire, rather than distract, from the work being produced,” explained Reisinger.
“I imagined the studio as a blank canvas, a place where my team and I could come to experiment, evolve and grow our ideas and projects.”
The office has a separate meeting room
Argentinian designer Andrés Reisinger founded Reisinger Studio in 2018. The artist is best known for the Hortensia chair, a bulbous pink armchair made with CGI that went viral on Instagram.
He also made headlines for his collection of “impossible” virtual furniture, which sold for $450,000 at auction.
A new series of reports on macro design trends reveals fascinating insights into the direction in which architects and designers are traveling — and harmony lies at the heart of the first publication. In collaboration with The Prospectivists and Broadside Studios, material research and resource platform Material ConneXion has released its first major trend report, entitled Eunomia, which can be interpreted as “Fair Measure or the Good Norm.” Originally coined for a period of societal reform in Ancient Greece, Eunomia aimed to impose harmonic rules to counterbalance the consequences of human excess.
This macro trend has clearly been catalyzed by the global pandemic. “As a reaction to months of lockdown, the fascination for the great outdoors, wellbeing and extreme sports have become deeply rooted in urbanized populations that increasingly aspire to experience a very specific and direct relationship to Nature,” states the report.
This phenomenon is linked with a rise in subcultures that recognize and embrace society’s interdependence with the natural world, developing new systems and products that are deeply informed by biological systems. Eunomia presents a diverse range of case studies to illustrate how this trend can be seen in action, from tree-bark-inspired wearables and moss-covered furnishings to bacteria-grown paint and 3D-printed waste wood tiles — complete with in-built planters.
Eunomia’s themes evoke images of numerous projects from last season’s A+Awards, including The Living’s “Alive” installation, which won a Finalist accolade in the Experimental Design category. “Alive” is an experiment in multi-species architecture: a room made of porous, organic material with both macro-spaces for humans and micro-spaces for microbes, with interfaces for exchanges among different species. Photos courtesy of The Living
For architects, the report is a veritable goldmine of inspiration. Biophilic design, resilient architecture, eco-conscious materials and sustainable construction processes are all touted within the ‘Innovation Concepts’ section, with stunning case studies of these concepts being put into practice. Standout examples include Casa Merida, a house designed by Ludwig Godefroy to “withstand the local climate, using locally sourced materials and traditional Mayan features: tall air paths and punctual green areas freshen the circulating air, providing a natural cooling sensation.”
Meanwhile, Tanya Rey’s Verdant Project presents 3D-printed ceramic columns that are designed to allow moss to grow across every surface, forming a new type of architectural ‘coating’ that blends manmade materials with nature. Additionally, Brigitte Kock and Irene Roca Moracia’s “bio concrete” material is made from invasive species such as Japanese knotweed and American crayfish, providing an “example of how polluting building materials can be transformed into new ‘economic and ecological’ value enhancing natural aesthetics, while helping to restore local biodiversity.”
The report brings to mind projects such as Querkraft Architekten’s A+Award-winning Austrian Pavilion for the 2020 Dubai Expo. Combining local building traditions and intelligent Austrian climate engineering, a series of 38 clay plaster cones enables conventional air conditioning technology to be largely avoided, saving three quarters of the energy needed for a comparable building. Photo by Dany Eid/Expo 2020 Dubai
The report wraps up with ‘Design Ideations’, a series of vibrant, complex mood boards tied together along both aesthetic and thematic lines. These diverse yet cohesive palettes should provide architects and designers with fertile ground for continued exploration of the concepts found throughout the report. The biggest takeaway? The power of Nature is only building, and creatives must surely work with it — rather than against it — in order to thrive in the upcoming decade.
To see the full trend report and receive new material insights each month, become a member of Material ConneXion. Learn more >
Top image: Austrian Pavilion for the 2020 Dubai Expo by Querkraft Architekten
After Seratech’s carbon-neutral cement won the 2022 Obel Award, Dezeen has rounded up six ways in which researchers are working to decarbonise concrete – the single most polluting building material in the world.
Currently, concrete’s key ingredient cement is responsible for around eight per cent of global emissions, surpassing all other materials except oil, gas and coal.
But as the world – and the Global Cement and Concrete Association (GCCA) – race to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 to avoid the worst effects of climate change, a growing number of material innovations are emerging to tackle concrete’s carbon footprint.
Mostly, these focus on finding low-carbon substitutes for cement, making use of everything from algae-grown limestone to olivine – an abundant mineral that can absorb its own mass in carbon dioxide.
But none of these alternatives is currently available at the necessary scale to reach net-zero emissions by mid-century, according to Cambridge University engineering professor Julian Allwood.
“Despite the enormous range of innovations in cement that are being publicised, there are no substitutes with all the same performance characteristics and scale as Portland cement,” Allwood said in a speech at the Built Environment Summit.
To help buy the construction industry time to scale up viable alternatives, other researchers are looking at slashing the embodied carbon footprint of buildings by developing clever construction techniques to reduce the amount of concrete needed in their construction.
Below, we’ve rounded up six of the most innovative projects across both approaches:
Photo is by Helene Sandberg
Seratech by Sam Draper and Barney Shanks
London start-up Seratech has developed a way of creating carbon-neutral concrete, which involves replacing up to 40 per cent of its cement content with a type of silica made from captured industrial emissions and the carbon-absorbing mineral olivine.
All of the emissions associated with the remaining cement are offset by the CO2 that is sequestered by the silica, the company claims, which would make the material overall carbon neutral.
The cement substitute is both low-cost and easy to scale, Seratech says, because it can be integrated seamlessly into existing production processes and because olivine is an abundant material – unlike other cement substitutes like ground granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBS).
Find out more about Seratech ›
Photo courtesy of Glenn Asakawa and the University of Colorado
Biogenic Limestone by Minus Materials
Taking a more experimental approach, researchers from the University of Colorado in Boulder have found a way to make cement using limestone that was grown by algae through photosynthesis, rather than limestone that was mined from the earth.
When this “biogenic limestone” is burned to make cement, it will only emit as much carbon as the microalgae drew down from the atmosphere during its growth, which researchers say makes the process carbon neutral.
If the ground limestone, which is typically added to the cement mixture as a filler, is also replaced with the algae-grown alternative the material could even be carbon negative, as the carbon stored in the aggregate would be sequestered instead of burned.
Supported by a $3.2 million (£2.7 million) grant from the US Department of Energy, the researchers are now working to scale up their manufacturing capabilities, while lowing the price of the material by also using the coccolithophores microalgae to make more expensive items like cosmetics, biofuels and food.
Find out more about Biogenic Limestone ›
Photo courtesy of ACORN
Concrete vaulted flooring by ACORN
As part of the ACORN project, researchers from the universities of Bath, Cambridge and Dundee have developed a thin-shell vaulted flooring system, which can be used to replace traditional solid floor slabs while using 75 per cent less concrete to carry the same load.
This resulted in an estimated 60 per cent reduction in carbon emissions for the team’s first full-scale demo project, built inside Cambridge University’s Civil Engineering Department.
“Since concrete is the world’s most widely consumed material after water […] the easiest way for construction to begin its journey to net-zero is to use less concrete,” said ACORN principal investigator Paul Shepherd from Bath’s Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering.
Made using an automated manufacturing system and a six-axis robot, the flooring also functions completely without reinforcements, eliminating the need for emissions-intensive steel rebar.
Find out more about concrete vaulted floors ›
Photo courtesy of Carbicrete
Carbicrete by McGill University
Montreal-based Carbicrete is among a number of companies making use of waste slag from the steel industry to completely eliminate the need for cement in the concrete production process.
Instead of the water used in traditional concrete production, this cement substitute is then cured with captured CO2 from factory flues, which is sequestered in the material to make it carbon neutral.
However, this process can so far only be used to make precast panels and concrete masonry units. And due to the limited amount of steel slag produced every year – around 250 million tonnes compared to four billion tons of cement – Carbicrete could only be used to meet a fraction of the demand.
Find out more about Carbicrete ›
Photo courtesy of Newtab-22
Sea Stone by Newtab-22
On a smaller scale, London design studio Newtab-22 has developed a concrete-like material made using waste seashells from the food industry, which are ground up and combined with a patent-pending mix of natural binders such as agar.
Called Sea Stone, the resulting material looks strikingly similar to real concrete since the oyster and mussel shells it contains are made from calcium carbonate, otherwise known as limestone – a key ingredient in cement.
But as the material is not fired, it lacks the strength and durability of real concrete and is restricted to non-structural applications, including surfaces such as tabletop and tiles as well as plinths and vases.
Find out more about Sea Stone ›
Photo is by Patrick Bedarf
FoamWork by ETH Zurich
Another technique for using less concrete comes from researchers at ETH Zurich, who have developed a system of 3D-printed formwork elements. Made from recyclable mineral foam, these can be placed inside the moulds used to make pre-cast concrete panels, creating a pattern of hollow cells throughout the slab.
The formwork creates an internal geometry, which was optimised to reinforce the panel along its principal stress lines and provides the necessary strength to create everything from walls to entire roofs, while drastically reducing the amount of concrete needed in the process.
This creates panels that are lighter and use 70 per cent less material. And after curing, the mineral foam can either be left in place to provide insulation or endlessly recycled to create new formwork elements, which ETH Zurich says makes the process potentially zero waste.
