I drafted Figure 5 in order to demonstrate the correspondence between low stress areas – where you can afford to use less concrete – which are circled in green, and high stress areas – where a larger mass of concrete is needed to support the theoretical load – which are circled in red.This effective design allows for more organic forms of concrete to be created (Figure 6). My research into these principles of stress- testing and considerate design helped me to realise that our use of concrete does need to be more efficient, as we do use an unnecessary excess of concrete, which we know is a significant producer of carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, fabric forming concrete could help reduce the ecological impact of the world of construction on the environment and help make the creation of our buildings more sustainable.
being built, the buildings we build are not being used efficiently enough, and we are using an unnecessary excess of materials to build them. Currently, a whole 25-30% of all waste created by the European Union comes from construction and demolition waste (European Commission, 2008).As this information comes from a report written by the European Commission, I felt that the information would have been thoroughly peer-reviewed and, therefore, would be one of the most relatable sources available. However, I recognise that the report was written in 2008 and therefore the information might now be slightly outdated. Unfortunately, I could not find any more current reports by the European Commission and, while there were some more recent reports from other sources, I did not think that they were particularly verifiable and so decided to leave them out of my evaluation. Considering the statistics that the European Commission provided, construction and demolition make up a significant proportion of the total waste produced.A large amount of this will likely be waste concrete, as it is the most commonly used building material. I believe that fabric formwork could help reduce this mass of material waste produced by enabling us to cut out concrete that isn’t structurally necessary.This would not only decrease the amount of concrete we use in building structures, but also the amount of concrete left behind to be disposed of when they are destroyed.As much as we might see concrete as a longstanding material because it does, generally, last for a very long time when uninterrupted, I believe it is important to realise that no building lasts forever and it will eventually become a waste product. While concrete is rarely thought of as being a recyclable material, it can be recycled in most circumstances (Bentley, 2022). Concrete can be ground down into small pieces, then sifted and used as aggregate for new concrete. Dr Peter Bentley states that “recycling one tonne of concrete could save 6,182 litres of water and 900kg of CO2” through decreasing the amount of new concrete that needs to be made, mining less gravel, and having a much smaller mass go to landfill. While not every part of concrete will be recycled, and so isn’t the biggest percentage of material saved, I think that, if recycling concrete was factored-in, in conjunction with using less concrete in the first place, then there could start to be a significant change as regards to the amount of concrete that we use per structure. This would again decrease the amount of concrete that the construction industry needs to produce, and therefore the amount of carbon dioxide emitted.Additionally, I think that reframing our mindset surrounding concrete, from a very stiff material that has set uses, set visuals and a set shelf-life, to a reusable and efficient material, would encourage more innovative mindsets in those who design and work with concrete. In my opinion, fabric
Figure 6: Fabric formed concrete pillars with a more organic shape that reflects high and low stress points.The wrapping of the fabric gives a highly aesthetically interesting texture that is not usually associated with concrete.
This is important because I believe that the main sustainability problem currently facing architecture is overconsumption, as it links not only to excessive use of finite resources but also to the inordinate carbon dioxide production. Overconsumption is currently undergoing a steep rise in every sector of consumerism – construction included.Too many buildings are
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