SUMMARY

RESEARCHERS: Brandon Raettig and Lucas Strzelec INSTRUCTION: Jen Wong SEMESTER: Spring 2021

This report describes the research, methodology and events of the two-part decarbonizing concrete workshop. Part one of the workshop was a round table discussion between CarbonCure, Lauren Concrete, and one of the City of Austin’s Sustainability Officers, all working on bringing low-carbon concrete to Austin. This discussion opened a conversation on how Austin is approaching decarbonizing concrete and what students of design can do to lower their carbon footprint within the building industry.

In the second part of the workshop, we were joined by Dougal Heap of Blue Planet who spoke of an innovative product that uses carbon sequestered synthetic C03 to coat and replace much of the natural limestone aggregate that has generally been used in concrete production. Participants were then instructed by Materials Lab researchers to cast a low-carbon concrete object into a folded chipboard template using Blue Planet aggregate. Participants were given a piece of Concrete Canvas to experiment making form with cast concrete alternatives. The purpose of this workshop was to try and understand how a city can begin to address decarbonizing concrete through policy, market trends, and innovative product development, while understanding the materiality of the products through a hands-on exercise.

Blue Planet aggregate Cast low-carbon concrete object from exercise 1 of part 2