探花直播 of Cambridge - Centre for Natural Material Innovation

Sowing seeds for timber skyscrapers can rewind the carbon footprint of the concrete industry

ehs33 — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 12:51:58 +0000

Recent innovations in engineered timber have laid the foundations for the world鈥檚 first wooden skyscrapers to appear within a decade, a feat that is not only achievable鈥攁ccording to the Centre for Natural Material Innovation鈥攂ut one they hope will beckon in an era of sustainable wooden cities, helping reverse historic emissions from the construction industry.

探花直播research team based at the Faculty of Architecture, is interdisciplinary, composed of architects, biochemists, chemists, mathematicians and engineers, who specialise in plant-based material, including cross-laminated timber, arguably the first major structural innovation since the advent of reinforced concrete, 150 years ago.

Principal Investigator Dr Michael Ramage, said 鈥淯ntil cross-laminated timber, there was simply no building material to challenge steel or reinforced concrete. To construct cities and indeed skyscrapers, we just had to accept the good and the bad of existing materials.

鈥淐oncrete is about five times heavier than timber, which means more expense for foundations and transport; it鈥檚 resource-intensive, and contributes to tremendous carbon dioxide emissions. After water, concrete is the most consumed material by humanity. But now we have an alternative, and it鈥檚 plant-based.鈥�

探花直播team envisage trees supplanting concrete as the predominant building material for cities, with buildings sown like seeds and cities harvested as crops, a way of simultaneously addressing climate change and global housing shortages.

Dr Ramage聽explained: 鈥淚n England alone, we need to build 340,000 new homes each year over the next 12 years to accommodate our population. Concrete is unsustainable. Timber, however, is the only building material we can grow, and that actually reduces carbon dioxide. Every tonne of timber expunges 1.8 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Doing the calculations, if all new English homes were constructed from timber, we could capture and offset the carbon footprints of around 850,000 people for 10 years.

鈥� 探花直播sustainable forests of Europe take just 7 seconds to grow the volume of timber required for a 3 bedroom apartment, and 4 hours to grow a 300 metre supertall skyscraper. Canada鈥檚 sustainable forests alone yield enough timber to house a billion people in perpetuity, with forested trees replenishing faster than their eventual occupants.鈥�

Various teams around the world are hoping聽to produce the tallest wooden skyscraper, however the team from Cambridge is confident they鈥檒l be the first, having done holistic work on three proposals for timber skyscrapers in London, Chicago, and the Hague, all of which are set to be showcased to the public at the Royal Society鈥檚 Summer Science Exhibition 2019, freely open to the public from July 1鈥�7.

探花直播team鈥檚 exhibit鈥�Timber towers of tomorrow鈥攚ill embody their vision, the stand itself modelled after a typical apartment nested within their proposed Oakwood Timber Tower at the Barbican Tower, where visitors can experience life in a treehouse while talking with the team, viewing architectural models of timber towers, learning about the fire performance properties of engineered timber, and hearing about the genetic, cellular, and macroscale innovations which have led to ply in the sky designs becoming a reality.

Beyond tackling climate change and promoting sustainability, the team are eager to outline the branching benefits society stands to gain by embracing timber architecture: the psychological well-being that comes from being surrounded by wood as compared with concrete, as well as the return to an ancient building material, that鈥檚 intimate as it is natural.

A bold response to the world鈥檚 greatest challenge
探花直播探花直播 of Cambridge is building on its existing research and launching an ambitious new environment and climate change initiative. Cambridge Zero is not just about developing greener technologies. It will harness the full power of the 探花直播鈥檚 research and policy expertise, developing solutions that work for our lives, our society and our biosphere.

探花直播Centre for Natural Material Innovation exhibited their proposals for timber skyscrapers聽at the Royal Society鈥檚 Summer Science Exhibition.

Wooden skyscrapers: Sustainable homes of the future?

River Beech Tower Chicago

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.聽 All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥� as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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House of moveable wooden walls promising cheaper, greener alternative to 鈥榢nocking through鈥�, wins award

ta385 — Thu, 22 Jun 2023 10:30:00 +0000

House-owners the world over consider 鈥榢nocking through鈥� walls to achieve more open-plan living or changing layouts to accommodate new arrivals or circumstances. 探花直播results may be impressive, but they come at a sizeable financial and environmental cost. But what if it wasn鈥檛 necessary to demolish internal brick and/or plaster walls and build new ones?

In June 2023, researchers at Cambridge鈥檚 Centre for Natural Material Innovation unveiled 'Ephemeral', an innovative alternative using engineered wood, at the London Design Biennale. 探花直播team, including partners聽PLP Architecture, went on to win聽the Public Choice Award for EUREKA!, the Biennale's first showcase of design-led innovation from聽UK聽research centres.

探花直播project, led by Cambridge researcher Ana Gat贸o, invites visitors to step into a home constructed around principles of affordability, sustainability, flexibility and adaptation. 探花直播flexible wooden partition walls 鈥� developed by Gat贸o as part of her Cambridge PhD research 鈥� are made using kerfing, which allows wood to bend without breaking, the same technique employed in the construction of guitars and other stringed instruments.

探花直播resulting wooden walls are simple, resilient, foldable and movable, meaning they can respond to the changing needs of residents, for instance, as children are born or leave the nest; as age or mobility bring changing requirements; or as homeworking patterns change.

Watch a short film about the project

Gat贸o says: 鈥淪elf-assembly and modular furniture have improved so many people鈥檚 lives. We鈥檝e developed something similar but for walls so people can take total control of their interior spaces.鈥�

鈥淚f you have lots of money, you can hire a designer and alter the interiors of your house, but if you don't, you're stuck with very rigid systems that could be decades out-of-date. You might be stuck with more rooms than you need, or too few. We want to empower people to make their spaces their own.鈥�

探花直播team鈥檚鈥榬ooms of requirement鈥� provide elegant, affordable solutions which can be built into the fabric of the building from its first design, or seamlessly retrofitted 鈥� avoiding the mountains of carbon associated with demolition and reconstruction.

Gat贸o says: 鈥淲e鈥檙e using engineered timber, which is affordable and sustainable. It's a natural material which stores carbon, and when you don鈥檛 need it anymore, you can make something else with it. So you are creating minimal waste.鈥�

Gat贸o and her colleagues are based in the 探花直播鈥檚 Centre for Natural Material Innovation, a world leader in research into innovative and sustainable uses of timber in construction.

探花直播team emphasises that their system could be used anywhere in the world, in workplaces as well as in homes, and the researchers have already had encouraging conversations with industry, including with affordable housing developers in India.

Gat贸o says: 鈥淚鈥檝e worked in development and post-disaster housing with NGOs in many countries around the world, always using sustainable materials. When I started my PhD, I wanted to merge making housing more affordable and social with technical innovation and sustainability. This is what our cities of the future need 鈥� caring for people and the environment at the same time.鈥�

Implemented at scale, this innovation could change the construction industry for the better, empowering people to adapt their spaces to their needs while slashing housing costs and overcoming some of the hurdles which the construction industry must tackle to be part of a sustainable future.

Working with Cambridge Enterprise, the research team is seeking industry and policy partners to further advance product feasibility for industry-wide adoption.

探花直播project is supported by PLP Architecture, 探花直播Laudes Foundation, the Future Observatory and the AHRC Design Accelerator.

Cambridge architects have won a public choice award at the聽London Design Biennale for a prototype home constructed with flexible wooden partition walls which can be shifted to meet the changing needs of residents. 探花直播invention aims to reduce waste and carbon while also improving living conditions for those who cannot afford expensive refurbishments.

This is what our cities of the future need 鈥� caring for people and the environment at the same time

Ana Gat贸o

Ron Bakker

Ephemeral exhibit at the London Design Biennale 2023

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.聽 All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥� as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Attribution-Noncommerical

Putting plants under the microscope

jg533 — Fri, 18 Jun 2021 08:13:57 +0000

Advanced microscopes at the 探花直播鈥檚 Sainsbury Laboratory are revealing the potential of plants as green factories for new chemicals and materials - as well as their intricate beauty.

Bamboo bats... Howzat?!

ta385 — Mon, 10 May 2021 05:00:00 +0000

Cricket bats should be made from bamboo rather than traditional willow, say researchers from Cambridge鈥檚 Centre for Natural Material Innovation. Extensive tests showed that bamboo performs better than willow as well as being more sustainable and cheaper.

Life-saving origami

ta385 — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 12:30:12 +0000

Cambridge researchers are sharing a quick and easy way to mass produce face shields for health workers in the poorest countries.

Visualising heat flow in bamboo could help design more energy-efficient and fire-safe buildings

jg533 — Wed, 13 Nov 2019 10:00:00 +0000

探花直播building sector currently accounts for 30-40% of all carbon emissions, due to both the energy-intensive production of the materials (predominantly steel and concrete), and the energy used in heating and cooling the finished buildings. As the global population grows and becomes increasingly based in towns and cities, traditional building approaches are becoming unsustainable.聽

Renewable, plant-based materials such as bamboo have huge potential for sustainable and energy-efficient buildings. Their use would dramatically reduce emissions compared to traditional materials, helping to mitigate the human impact on climate change. This approach would also help keep carbon out of the atmosphere by diverting timber away from being burnt as fuel.聽

探花直播study involved scanning cross-sections of bamboo vascular tissue, the tissue that transports fluid and nutrients within the plant. 探花直播resulting images revealed an intricate fibre structure with alternating layers of thick and thin cell walls. Peaks of thermal conductivity within the bamboo structure coincide with the thicker walls, where chains of cellulose 鈥� the basic structural component of plant cell walls 鈥� are laid down almost parallel to the plant stem. These thicker layers also give bamboo its strength and stiffness. In contrast, the thinner cell walls have lower thermal conductivity due to cellulose chains being almost at a right angle to the plant stem.聽

鈥淣ature is an amazing architect. Bamboo is structured in a really clever way,鈥� said Darshil Shah, a researcher in Cambridge 探花直播鈥檚 Department of Architecture, who led the study. 鈥淚t grows by one millimetre every ninety seconds, making it one of the fastest growing plant materials. Through the images we collected, we can see that it does this by generating a naturally cross-laminated fibre structure.鈥�

While much research has been done on the cell structure of bamboo in relation to its mechanical properties, almost none has looked at how cell structure affects the thermal properties of the material. 探花直播amount of heating and cooling required in buildings is fundamentally related to the properties of the materials they are made from, particularly how much heat they conduct and store.

A better understanding of the thermal properties of bamboo provides insights into how to reduce the energy consumption of bamboo buildings. It also enables modelling of the way bamboo building components behave when exposed to fire, so that measures can be incorporated to make bamboo buildings safer.聽

鈥淧eople may worry about fire safety of bamboo buildings,鈥� said Shah. 鈥淭o address this properly we have to understand the thermal properties of the building material. Through our work we can see that heat travels along the structure-supporting thick cell wall fibres in bamboo, so if exposed to the heat of a fire the bamboo might soften more quickly in the direction of those fibres. This helps us work out how to reinforce the building appropriately.鈥澛�

At present, products such as laminated bamboo are most commonly used as flooring materials due to their hardness and durability. However, their stiffness and strength is comparable to engineered wood products, making them suitable for structural uses as well. 鈥淐ross-laminated timber is a popular choice of timber construction material. It鈥檚 made by gluing together layers of sawn timber, each at a right angle to the layer below,鈥� said Shah. 鈥淪eeing this as a natural structure in bamboo fibres is inspiration for the development of better building products.鈥�

探花直播team of researchers, from the 探花直播 of Cambridge and the 探花直播 of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, also plans to look at what happens to heat flow in bamboo when its surface is burned and forms char. 探花直播use of scanning thermal microscopy to visualise the intricate make-up of plants could also be useful in other areas of research, such as understanding how micro-structural changes in crop stems may cause them to fall over in the fields resulting in lost harvests.

Shah is a member of the 探花直播 of Cambridge鈥檚 interdisciplinary Centre for Natural Material Innovation, which aims to advance the use of timber in construction by modifying the tissue-scale properties of wood to make it more reliable under changing environmental conditions.聽

探花直播research was funded by the Leverhulme Trust, the Austrian Science Fund and the Lower Austrian Research and Education Society.聽

Reference
Shah, D.et al: 鈥�Mapping thermal conductivity across bamboo cell walls with scanning thermal microscopy.鈥� Scientific Reports (2019). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-53079-4

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Modified natural materials will be an essential component of a sustainable future, but first a detailed understanding of their properties is needed. 探花直播way heat flows across bamboo cell walls has been mapped using advanced scanning thermal microscopy, providing a new understanding of how variations in thermal conductivity are linked to the bamboo鈥檚 elegant structure. 探花直播findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports, will guide the development of more energy-efficient and fire-safe buildings, made from natural materials, in the future.聽

Nature is an amazing architect. Bamboo is structured in a really clever way.

Darshil Shah

Researcher profile: Dr Darshil Shah

聽

Dr聽Darshil聽Shah is a Lecturer in the Department of Architecture who loves nature. 鈥淣ature is the master creator and architect!鈥� he says. 鈥淢y research is focused on how we can better use our natural resources to produce sustainable materials, which can be used in high-end and high-performance applications.鈥�

He studied Mechanical Engineering with Mathematics at the 探花直播 of Nottingham, where a summer internship sparked his interest in real-world design.

鈥淎s an undergraduate student I had a fantastic opportunity to work on the design and manufacture of a five kilowatt wind turbine for the campus,鈥� says Shah. 鈥� 探花直播day we installed it was so exciting. It made me聽realise聽the impact my work could have, and the importance of joining together fundamental and applied research.鈥�

Shah鈥檚 subsequent PhD, on the low-cost manufacture of wind turbine blades for small-scale turbines, led him to think about using greener materials to avoid the blades ending up in landfill at the end of their life. He also spent time in Oxford 探花直播鈥檚 Silk Group, where he learned about natural materials.

鈥淢y time at Oxford plunged me into a whole new world. I started thinking about how our materials and built environment could be informed and inspired by the natural world 鈥� from the beautiful silk threads and webs of spiders and silkworms, to the magnificent ivory tusks of elephants,鈥� he says.

In Cambridge, Shah is exploring how to use a wide range of virgin and waste聽bioresources, such as timber, bamboo and waste date palm聽fibres, to help create sustainable products - from buildings to boats.聽

鈥淎t the fundamental level I鈥檓 exploring natural materials and structures for inspiration,鈥� he says. 鈥淎t the applied level, I鈥檓 working with industry to聽optimise聽materials for various sectors, from construction to transport.鈥�

Shah believes that breaking boundaries between disciplines, particularly arts and humanities, and science and technology, is the only way to truly tackle some of the global challenges we face.聽

鈥淐ambridge has a rich mix of brilliant researchers, thinkers and doers,鈥� he says. 鈥淚鈥檝e made connections in so many different departments, and had the chance to work on a fantastic variety of projects that I don鈥檛 think would have been possible anywhere else.鈥�

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Revealing the nanostructure of wood could help raise height limits for wooden skyscrapers

jg533 — Wed, 23 Oct 2019 04:00:00 +0000

There is increasing interest around the world in using timber as a lighter, more sustainable construction alternative to steel and concrete. While wood has been used in buildings for millennia, its mechanical properties have not, as yet, measured up to all modern building standards for major superstructures. This is due partly to a limited understanding of the precise structure of wood cells.

探花直播research, published today in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science, has also identified the plant Arabidopsis thaliana as a suitable model to help direct future forestry breeding programmes.

Dr Jan Lyczakowski, the paper鈥檚 first author from Cambridge 探花直播鈥檚 Department of Biochemistry, who is now based at Jagiellonian 探花直播, said, 鈥淚t is the molecular architecture of wood that determines its strength, but until now we didn鈥檛 know the precise molecular arrangement of cylindrical structures called macrofibrils in the wood cells. This new technique has allowed us to see the composition of the macrofibrils, and how the molecular arrangement differs between plants, and it helps us understand how this might impact on wood density and strength.鈥�

探花直播main building blocks of wood are the secondary walls around each wood cell, which are made of a matrix of large polymers called cellulose and hemicellulose, and impregnated with lignin. Trees such as the giant sequoia can only achieve their vast heights because of these secondary cell walls, which provide a rigid structure around the cells in their trunks.

探花直播team from Cambridge 探花直播鈥檚 Department of Biochemistry and Sainsbury Laboratory (SLCU) adapted low-temperature scanning electron microscopy (cryo-SEM) to image the nanoscale architecture of tree cell walls in their living state. This revealed the microscopic detail of the secondary cell wall macrofibrils, which are 1000 times narrower than the width of a human hair.

To compare different trees, they collected wood samples from spruce, gingko and poplar trees in the Cambridge 探花直播 Botanic Garden. Samples were snap-frozen down to minus 200掳C to preserve the cells in their live hydrated state, then coated in an ultra-thin platinum film three nanometres thick to give good visible contrast under the microscope.

鈥淥ur cryo-SEM is a significant advance over previously used techniques and has allowed us to image hydrated wood cells for the first time鈥�, said Dr Raymond Wightman, Microscopy Core Facility Manager at SLCU. 鈥淚t has revealed that there are macrofibril structures with a diameter exceeding 10 nanometres in both softwood and hardwood species, and confirmed they are common across all trees studied.鈥�

Cryo-SEM is a powerful imaging tool to help understand various processes underlying plant development. Previous microscopy of wood was limited to dehydrated wood samples that had to be either dried, heated or chemically processed before they could be imaged.

探花直播team also imaged the secondary cell walls of Arabidopsis thaliana, an annual plant widely used as the standard reference plant for genetics and molecular biology research. They found that it too had prominent macrofibril structures. This discovery means that Arabidopsis could be used as a model for further research on wood architecture. Using a collection of Arabidopsis plants with different mutations relating to their secondary cell wall formation, the team was able to study the involvement of specific molecules in the formation and maturation of macrofibrils.

Dr Matthieu Bourdon, a research associate at SLCU, said, 鈥� 探花直播variants of Arabidopsis allowed us to determine the contribution of different molecules - like cellulose, xylan and lignin - to macrofibril formation and maturation. As a result, we are now developing a better understanding of the processes involved in assembling cell walls.鈥�

探花直播wealth of Arabidopsis genetic resources offers a valuable tool to further study the complex deposition of secondary cell wall polymers, and their role in defining the fine structure of cell walls and how these mature into wood.

鈥淰isualising the molecular architecture of wood allows us to investigate how changing the arrangement of certain polymers within it might alter its strength,鈥� said Professor Paul Dupree, a co-author of the study in Cambridge鈥檚 Department of Biochemistry. 鈥淯nderstanding how the components of wood come together to make super strong structures is important for understanding both how plants mature, and for new materials design.鈥�

鈥淭here is increasing interest around the world in using timber as a lighter and greener construction material,鈥� added Dupree. 鈥淚f we can increase the strength of wood, we may start seeing more major constructions moving away from steel and concrete to timber.鈥�

Professor Dupree and Dr Lyczakowski are involved in the Leverhulme Trust funded Natural Material Innovation Centre where a team of biochemists, plant scientists, architects, mathematicians and chemists at the 探花直播 of Cambridge is working towards better understanding of wood structure, modification and application. 探花直播researchers are hoping they can make wooden skyscrapers, and even wooden cars, a reality by re-engineering the structure of wood in order to make better materials for construction and manufacturing. Their work was recently showcased at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition in London.

This study was supported by the Leverhulme Trust Centre for Natural Material Innovation, US Department of Energy, BBSRC, ERC and Gatsby Charitable Foundation.

聽

Reference

J. Lyczakowski et al. 鈥楽tructural imaging of native cryo-preserved secondary cell walls reveals the presence of macrofibrils and their formation requires normal cellulose, lignin and xylan biosynthesis.鈥� Frontiers in Plant Science (2019) DOI:10.3389/fpls.2019.01398

聽

Cambridge researchers have captured the visible nanostructure of living wood for the first time using an advanced low-temperature scanning electron microscope.

Understanding how the components of wood come together to make super strong structures is important for understanding both how plants mature, and for new materials design.

Paul Dupree

Microscopic structure of spruce wood

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Innovative stadium will be the home of cricket in East Africa

ag236 — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 09:18:26 +0000

Some 1,500 people 鈥搃ncluding Rwandan president Paul Kagame鈥� are expected to attend the opening of the country鈥檚 first international standard stadium on Saturday 28 October. 探花直播event will feature a match between teams led by former England captain Michael Vaughan and South African record-breaking cricketer Herschelle Gibbs.

Although cricket is one of the fastest growing sports in Rwanda, the country has not had, until now, a pitch that was appropriate for hosting international matches. Rwandan teams could only compete internationally by travelling to other countries, while Rwandan聽fans were unable to watch their own teams in action on home ground.

探花直播new cricket grounds in Gahanga, a southern suburb of the Rwandan capital, Kigali, are the result of a partnership between the Rwanda Cricket Stadium Foundation 鈥揳 British charity鈥�, the Rwanda Cricket Association, the Government of Rwanda, and architectural firm Light Earth Designs (LED), co-founded by Cambridge lecturer Dr. Michael Ramage.

One of the new grounds' most recognisable features is a pavilion consisting of three vaults constructed with 66,000 handmade tiles made by local workers using locally-sourced materials. 探花直播vaults鈥� shape mimics the parabolic geometry of a bouncing ball, and echoes Rwanda鈥檚 hilly topography.

These instantly recognisable vaults are the final product of research carried out by Dr. Ramage, from the 探花直播 of Cambridge鈥檚 Centre for Natural Material Innovation, with Ms Ana Gat贸o and Mr Wesam Al Asali. They build on Dr.聽Ramage鈥檚 earlier work alongside Dr.聽Matt DeJong (Cambridge) and Prof.聽John Ochsendorf (MIT).

Dr.聽Ramage and Prof. Ochsendorf had pioneered the pavilion鈥檚 characteristic soil tiled vaulting with architect Peter Rich of LED,聽at the Mapungubwe Interpretative Centre in South Africa.聽Adapted for the Rwandan context with Mr Tim Hall, LED co-founder and project lead, the vaults聽rise聽out of the cut soil banking formed as the pitch was levelled, integrating seamlessly with the landscape. 探花直播banking creates a natural amphitheatre with views over the pitch and the wetland valley beyond.

探花直播project is part of a 5-year initiative led by Light Earth Designs to assist Rwandan development. It aims to encourage the use of home-grown, labour-intensive construction techniques, thereby lowering the carbon footprint of local building projects, enhancing local skills and helping to build the local economy.

Speaking ahead of the opening ceremony, Dr. Ramage said: 鈥渢he Rwanda Cricket Stadium embodies not only the聽spirit聽of cricket in Rwanda, but also that of the men and women who crafted and constructed the building over the past few months.鈥�

聽

Cambridge architectural engineer is part of the team that has built Rwanda鈥檚 first international stadium

Light Earth Designs

View of Rwanda Cricket Stadium

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

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