The Filament Factory: Building from Waste

The Filament Factory: Building from Waste

Van der Lely, M.A.

Van Gemert, M. (mentor)
Groenewold, S. (mentor)

Architecture and The Built Environment

Architecture

Complex Projects

2016-01-22

Chicago is the third largest city in the US, but is also in the bottom 10 worst recycling cities. Building on the research done to revitalize old industrial area's of Chicago, the "Filament Factory" is a building that takes an active step to rethinking the way plastic is used and recycled. Today over 61% of plastic is dumped on landfills where it does not degrade, with the prospected growth of the 3D-printing market this number is destined to increase as printers use plastic as main raw material for there fabrication process. Using a new way to recycle plastic, the Filament Factory turns waste plastic into raw material used for 3D-printers, "filament". In addition the building it self is made from this filament. By scripting a design algorithm based on catenary simulation and structural optimization it becomes possible to use plastic as main construction material. Using 3D-printing as building methode allows building blocks to become structural, insulating and fully detailed through a single material. Building with printable blocks, the building can be build with a large amount of flexibility and possibility to change and shape to future use. At the end of the buildings life cycle the blocks can again be shredded and recycled into filament.

plastic
3d-printing
digital fabrication
closed loop
design algorithm
waste
filament
building from waste
chicago
catenary

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:b53731bc-bc92-4b43-8206-c19918fd661b

41.851431, -87.664008

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2016 Van der Lely, M.A.