Peter
Ho_
CONCRETE
OASIS
INSTRUCTOR
Roger Hubeli
YEAR
April 2020
SOFTWARE
Rhino, Grasshopper, Photoshop
Concrete has been an important building material throughout history, it allows us to build nonlinear structure because of its materiality property. Fluidity is the feature of concrete that gives us the freedom to form it, however, it also causes some problems. Most of the method to handle concrete requires a mold, which limits the freedom of form and pulling us back from design possibility.
Via looking into all processes of utilizing this material, mining, processing, mixing, casting, and curing, looking to find a method to break the limitation that was set before 3D printing was invented. Adding different additives combination into the mixture can reflect different outcomes.
THE MATERIAL FLOWS OF CONCRETE / USA IMPORT
MATTER TO MATERIAL
Concrete production is the process of mixing together the various ingredients—water, aggregate, cement, and any additives. It is time-sensitive, once the ingredients are mixed, workers must put the concrete in place before it hardens. Most concrete production takes place in a concrete plant, or often a batch plant. The paste is generally mixed in a high-speed, shear-type mixer at a water to cement ratio of 0.30 to 0.45 by mass. The cement paste premix may include admixtures such as accelerators or retarders, superplasticizers, pigments, or silica fume. The premixed paste is then blended with aggregates and any remaining batch water and final mixing is completed in conventional concrete mixing equipment.
MATTER
TO
BUILDING
Concrete is one of the most durable building materials. It provides superior fire resistance compared with wooden construction and gains strength over time. Structures made of concrete can have a long service life. Concrete is used more than any other artificial material in the world. As of 2006, about 7.5 billion cubic meters of concrete are made each year, more than one cubic meter for every person on Earth.
MATERIAL
PERFORMANCE
Large-Scale 3D concrete printing is using Ultra-High Performance Concrete that uses the extrusion-based technique to deposit UHPC layer by layer through an extrusion print head mounted on a 6-axes robotic arm. The main advantages of the proposed technology are allowing the production of large-scale 3D printed complex geometries without the use of temporary supports. The material used in Concrete Printing is a high performance, fiber-reinforced, fine-aggregate concrete, resulting in superior material properties.
3D PRINTED PAVILION
AS SHADING AND PLANTER
Modern cities are described as a concrete jungle, where nature is away from our everyday lives and only row after rows of concrete buildings left in our view. While developing a new method of construction, we can use easily accessible natural material to minimize the waste created during construction.
As time goes by, the earth mold became stronger and stronger while the root expands. This pavilion is not just a planter to grow trees, it’s an architecture that integrates with nature and supported by the root system of plants.