Writing about a material as tangible as concrete, I designed and created my own material experiments with the focus on attempting to find a more sustainable solution to our concrete problem. By experimenting with different percentages of concrete and substituting it for C&D waste, my experiments were an attempt to find a solution to not only our Earth-damaging relationship with concrete, but to also attempt to find a solution to our ever-growing C&D waste problem, as despite recycling options, most ends up in landfill for various reasons.
First Material Experiment Samples
The first set of material experiments were to understand the material in more depth as well as to begin the process of experimenting with different percentages and materials. Each sample of concrete is different here, some containing sawdust and wood waste, others containing glass waste and others being pure concrete. This main purpose of this test was to experiment with the appearance of concrete, looking at textures and the finish of when we look outside of traditional concrete.
Wood Waste and Concrete Material Sample
Glass and Concrete Material Sample
Wood Waste, Glass and Concrete Material Sample
This is a sample of the photographs from my material experiments and focuses a lot of texture of the final material experiment. In the future I would like to develop these experiments further, looking at eliminating concrete altogether and finding other more sustainable material solutions.
If you would like to read my thesis and the material experiments in full, please request to through my contact page!
Rachel C Clarke Portfolio 