Scientists of University of Colorado Boulder have developed what they call living concrete by using sand, gel and bacteria.Researchers said this building material has structural load-bearing function, is capable of self-healing and is more environmentally friendly than concrete – which is the second most-consumed material on Earth after water.The team from the University of Colorado Boulder believe their work paves the way for future building structures that could “heal their own cracks, suck up dangerous toxins from the air or even glow on command”.
Researchers at the Institute of Industrial Science, a part of The University of Tokyo, have developed a new procedure for recycling concrete with the addition of discarded wood. They found that the correct proportion of inputs can yield a new building material with a bending strength superior to that of the original concrete.This research may help drastically reduce construction costs, as well as slash carbon emissions.Concrete consists of two parts, aggregate-- gravel and
crushed stone--and cement. It's the production of cement that is blamed for a
large amount of the carbon dioxide humans release into the atmosphere.
Long ignored beyond the developing world, bamboo (a grass, not a tree) has the compressive strength of concrete and the tensile strength of steel. Unlike those materials, it sequesters carbon as it grows instead of emitting it while it’s made.
It replenishes rapidly, shooting up by as much as three feet per week. It’s hollow and lightweight. There’s no wood that can compete with that. Mexican architecture firm CO-LAB recently designed Luum Temple, a bamboo pavilion in Tulum, Mexico.
https://www.autodesk.com/redshift/bamboo-construction/
