digital upcycling of concrete rubble
how : academic research
what : 1:1 wall prototypes
who : Maxence Grangeot, Corentin Fivet [SXL-EPFL], Stefana Parascho [CRCL-EPFL]
where : Lausanne, Switzerland
Despite the enormous emissions and raw materials needed to produce concrete, healthy structures made of concrete are demolished daily under the jaws of hydraulic excavators and energy-intensive crushers. We propose to upcycle large irregular concrete rubble into walls with the help of digital tools.Our full-scale demonstrators are walls of approx. 2.5m tall, 2.9m long, built out of large “of the pile” concrete rubble pieces. Digital tools were used to harness the geometrical complexity inherent to found irregular concrete rubble and to precisely assemble them into slender yet stable walls. Due to its commodity and environmental potential, using unaltered concrete rubble as a new construction material hints at new possibilities for circular construction.More information in scientific literature is in this paper.
Prototype 01
