Kate RusekMaterials Phase 3
What Does Nature Know
About Assembly?
‘Stalasso’ Neri Oxman
Recycling
Industrial By-products
Traditional wisdom based on natural
materials
Portland Cement Concrete
Design
recycled aggre-gate
modular systems
Adobe
Cob
Compressed Earth Block
Rammed Earth
integrate with vegetation
fly ash
blast furnace slag
biomass binders
organic naturally occurring binders
Recycling
Industrial By-products
Consider Natural Ma-terials in terms of
Biomimicry
Portland Cement Concrete
Design
recycled aggre-gate
modular systems
integrate with vegetation
fly ash
blast furnace slag
biomass binders
organic naturally occurring binders
Learn from Nature:Biomimicry
Loofahxylem becomes rigid when
dried forming natural matrix
Learn from Nature:Biomimicry
Marine Sponges
spongin (collagen) +Silica
Glass Sponges:spinicles made of silica to form scaf-folding like frame with living tissue suspended between
Learn from Nature:Biomimicry
WaspsNest are reinforced with parallel
fibers
Coir - Coconut/Palm FiberNot necessary to kill tree to harvest, often by product of palm oil industry
Learn from Nature:Biomimicry
Learn from Nature:Biomimicry Miscellaneous
Palm Shoot Swiss Cheese
Starch + Water
Morel Mushrooms
Bone Structure
Beginning Stages: Planning
modular mold
plan view
initial sketch
mold construction
FSC Wood
natural dowels
cull lumber
Beginning Stages: Version #1
fabric mold
initial sketches
mold read to pour
Beginning Stages: Prototype #1
out of the mold
Beginning Stages: Prototype #1
Next Steps:
adjust dowel length for more holes in present iteration, should be poured using Calera, Ekkomaxx (fly ash carbon capture)
try pervious concrete in addition to designed voids
move dowels around a bit for more even spacing and thickness
try different fabric characteristics to reduce materials
address fabric reuse or protection during pro-cess
vary void shape
Beginning Stages: Version #2
Next Steps:
experiment with different plant de-rived reinforcement material think more about waste streams
experiment with thickness of tile to use less material
revise to include interlocking mechanism
expand on process to design production on a larger scale
explore additional possibility for void making material
Concrete can already do this How can I get it to do this?
Further Research:
http://www.cementenbeton.nl/
http://www.materialecology.com/
http://www.freiotto.com/