Digital Fabrication and Design using Ultra-High Performance Concrete

3D concrete printing and the digital design processes associated with this technology are developing quickly across the world, both in academia and in practice, moving from the realm of the artisan to the early stages of automated manufacturing.
How do architects engage this emerging new field that combines fabrication technologies with material in their design processes? Emerging use of ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) creates designs without steel reinforcing in thinner structures by using fine sand and integrated fibre reinforcements. By combining this advanced concrete mixture with 3D printing technologies, this research looks to engage how the digital design and fabrication knowledge and processes in architecture will inform not only what our structures of the future are like, but how they are made in a continuous process of design thinking in a series of prototype structures and hands-on experiments.

Faculty Supervisor:

Sheryl Boyle

Student:

Sinan Husic

Partner:

Canadian Precast Prestressed Concrete Institute

Discipline:

Architecture and design

Sector:

Construction and infrastructure

University:

Carleton University