31 Jul 2023
Last week saw the final of this year’s Fresh Concrete webinars, a series designed to showcase some of the innovative practice, and new types of concrete emerging to address climate mitigation and adaptation.
The 2023 series ended in style with over 230 people joining the webinar to learn more about Biozeroc’s patent pending process for ‘growing concrete’. Over the 30 minute lunchtime session Liv Andersson, CEO and founder of Biozeroc, explained the principles, potential benefits and progress of their technology.
This innovation is an evolution of self-healing concrete, which works similarly to the way in which coral grows, but BioZeroc’s technology creates more massive, stronger elements for use in construction. As always, attendees had the opportunity to ask questions during the session and the number and range of questions received demonstrated significant interest in this new approach to creating concrete.
The success of this event was reflective of the whole series, with excellent attendance and engagement from the audience at each of the four events. I’m delighted that in total an impressive 1,620 people registered to attend.
The series started in April, when Nigel George, Director of Artecology invited us into his studio on the Isle of Wight to witness first hand their low carbon concrete creations, crafted to enhance the beauty and biodiversity of artificial coastal structures, river defences and inner-city spaces. This represented an excellent example of a different approach to the way we can use concrete.
The next event, in May, featured Minimass TM, where founder, Andy Howard, described the development of their new design and manufacturing technique to create 3D printed concrete structural beams. I was struck by how lean these building elements could be, by placing the concrete and prestressing elements just where they need to be.
KarboniteTM was the subject of the third in the Fresh Concrete 2023 series - a low carbon, magnesium-based concrete combining magnesium silicate and agricultural by-products as alternative ingredients for manufacture. Rajeev Sood, founder and MD, introduced the concept and potential development of their innovation, based on the naturally abundant mineral, olivine. The technical detail was provided through conversation and questions with co-founder Professor Dr Thomas Brück.
I continue to be inspired by the technology presented in the Fresh Concrete series, and am impressed by how many innovations have been instigated not by academic or research institutions but by designers and engineers, this was particularly evident in this year’s crop of talks. I’m already looking forward to the next Fresh Concrete, due to launch in April 2024.
Fresh Concrete is a collaboration between The Building Centre and The Concrete Centre and is hosted by Elaine Toogood, Director of Architecture and Sustainable Design at The Concrete Centre. All four of this year’s presentations, and a further eight from 2022 are available to watch on-demand, via www.concretecentre.com/freshconcrete