problems of the current construction world, as there is such a large breadth of issues, many of which are entirely unrelated to material use, it could help reduce our concrete usage. For example, Khoshnevis’ work around “contour crafting”; where concrete is only placed where needed, helps show exactly how fabric formed concrete could result in less concrete being used per structure in the future (Khoshnevis, 2004). Fabric formwork lends itself well to “contour crafting”; the use of AI and algorithms in the planning stage can enable engineers to see where the most stress from loadbearing or internal pressure would be, and therefore where concrete is needed the most and least (as opposed to a regular concrete pillar (Figure 4)). By mapping out where the points that need the most support are, and targeting the bulk of the concrete towards that point, it allows for unnecessary concrete to be cut out of the design.
global temperature increase to 2°C (United Nations, 2020), the construction industry would need to roughly halve the CO2 emissions that it produces every year.When I first thought about this, it seemed a near impossible goal, as I know that the demand for housing is increasing, and increasing at a much faster rate than effective innovation. I was initially hesitant about these figures as they did appear quite high, and so I tried to look for contrasting information, however, I found none.While there were some different reports which offered slightly varying statistics, I ended up using these figures in my analysis because I believed that they were by the most reputable sources – the IEA and the United Nations – and, therefore, will have been written by experts on the topic and properly fact-checked. So, I believe that the point still stands – construction is one of the biggest producers of concrete in the world, and we need to drastically reduce the amount that is used in the construction industry in order to do our bit towards stabilising climate change. It is important for me to note that other materials that produce less emissions are often more expensive or less effective, meaning it would be incredibly difficult to stop using concrete – which is one of the most effective and familiar building materials – entirely. So, I think that, in order to properly tackle the problem at hand, we need to slightly reframe our mindsets from abandoning concrete altogether in favour of more typically sustainable materials, and instead look into ways we can use concrete less, more effectively, and in conjunction with these other materials. It is an objective fact that any reduction in the amount of concrete we use would be environmentally beneficial, since concrete production is such a significant carbon dioxide producer. Carbon dioxide is a waste product of cement and concrete production, produced when limestone (CaO) is created from calcium carbonate (CaCO3).To get from calcium carbonate to limestone, one carbon atom (C) and two oxygen atoms (O2) must be removed per molecule that is converted, which bind together to form carbon dioxide (CO2) (Gibbs, Soyka and Conneely, n.d.). Reducing our carbon output not only helps decrease the overall impact of global warming, but also allows for better air-quality and higher rainfall levels. I am firm in my belief that fabric formwork could help decrease the amount of concrete we need to use per structure, and therefore reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced in the making of concrete, which would be immensely beneficial to our environment.
Figure 4: Standard concrete pillars, used for load-bearing support in buildings.
Figure 5:A digitally generated image of fabric formed concrete pillars. I demonstrated areas of high stress with red circles and areas of low stress with green circles.As you can see, more concrete is targeted towards the areas of high stress and less in the areas of low stress, allowing for more efficient concrete usage.
CaCO3 + heat CaO + CO2
While I concede that fabric formwork cannot help lessen all of the different sustainability
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