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Engineers in Australia have found a way of making stronger concrete with roasted used-coffee grounds, to give the drink-additive a "double shot" at life and reduce waste going to landfills. [...]
Published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, the study by RMIT engineers is the first to prove that waste coffee grounds can be used to improve concrete.
— Science Daily
The study found that three different coffee ground samples each increased their concrete pour’s compressive strengths by up to 30% once their organic compounds were broken down through pyrolysis. The discovery could go a long way in combatting issues such as food waste and the carbon impact of... View full entry
Korean practice On Architecture INC. has created a project that aims to regenerate a village with an aging population in Icheon-si, South Korea, renowned for rice and flower farming. Named NONSPACE, the project proposes new possibilities through an experimental cross-cultural facility or... View full entry
Polish firm SLAS architekci has injected an eye-catching multifunctional public space into a university campus in the southern Polish city of Chorzów. Called “Activity Zone,” the project was a nominee in the 2022 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe... View full entry
David Adjaye’s statement-making first skyscraper design for the New York City market has debuted in Lower Manhattan, marking the culmination of a project that will stand as a testament to his attention to historical context and the elevation of craft in architecture. The design for the 66-story... View full entry
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced earlier this month that it has reached a major milestone in one of the most ambitious low-carbon concrete programs of its kind among U.S. transportation agencies. Originally introduced in September 2020, the Clean Construction Program... View full entry
Brazilian firm ARQBR Arquitetura e Urbanismo’s Church of the Holy Family is a striking new circular, concrete structure that seeks to connect Brasília’s urban and natural landscape. Image: Joana França The church is located on the edge of the capital’s EPIA (Park Road of... View full entry
In an address to the Global Cement and Concrete Association in Zurich on Tuesday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres laid out his vision for changes to the industry he says are “fundamental to building a better world.” Speaking to executives assembled in a “call to action,”... View full entry
In a novel approach to sustainable construction, a team of researchers led by Siswanti Zuraida, Bart Dewancker from Kitakyushu University in Japan, and Romi Bramantyo Margono, have pioneered a method to utilize non-degradable waste, notably disposable diapers, as composite materials for building... View full entry
Famous historic sites, low-income apartments and Twitter's headquarters all appear on a previously unpublished draft list of 3,407 concrete buildings in San Francisco that may be at high risk of collapse in a major earthquake, according to a copy of a city government document obtained by NBC News through a public records request. — NBC News
The city says the list is still a “preliminary draft inventory” of at-risk concrete structures, some of which were built after 2000, according to NBC. Who will actually pay for the mass retrofits still hasn’t been hammered out yet, leaving many to speculate as to its near-term feasibility... View full entry
New research from MIT has found that adding sodium bicarbonate, otherwise known as baking soda, to concrete mixtures may make a significant dent in the material’s carbon footprint. The findings, published recently in the journal PNAS Nexus, also suggest that the addition of sodium bicarbonate... View full entry
Nexii Building Solutions Inc. has become the first construction manufacturing company in North America to achieve the Total Resource Use and Efficiency (TRUE) Gold Certification for Zero Waste for its Squamish Manufacturing Plant in British Columbia, Canada. Administered by Green Business... View full entry
A new solution to America’s multifaceted housing frustrations is blowing up in New York’s Hudson River Valley thanks to a startup called Automatic Construction. The company says it has invented a new technique named the Inflatable Flexible Factory Formwork (or IFFF), which, with the help of an... View full entry
A group of faculty and students from ETH Zurich has completed a prototype architectural pavilion whose production merges 3D printing with computational design. Unveiled at the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, the Eggshell Pavilion’s development seeks to demonstrate how "digital design techniques... View full entry
AI concrete startup AICrete has announced that it has raised $4 million in seed funding led by venture capital firms CLEAR Ventures and VoLo Earth Ventures, along with Cortical Ventures. AICrete is a recipe-as-a-service platform that optimizes materials for cleaner and more cost-efficient... View full entry
A new architectural installation from MIT’s Norman B. Leventhal Center for Advanced Urbanism (LCAU) for the Mextrópoli Architecture and City Festival in Mexico City is leveraging the school’s recent innovations in materials research to weave a narrative about the centuries-old capital through... View full entry
