TailorCrete - Innovative industrial methods for future digital concrete architecture

Project start August 2009. Project completed February 2014.

Summary
TailorCrete was an European project under FP7 with the title: New Industrial Technologies for Tailor-made Concrete Structures at Mass Customized Prices. The project addressed the weak link between digital 3D-modelling possibilities using advanced CAD (Computer-Aided Design) software and physical formwork/reinforcement fabrication to enable the realization of digital architecture. The creation of complex concrete structures is extremely costly, since formwork and reinforcement fabrication as well as processing are still labour intensive processes. In this light, the TailorCrete project aimed at overcoming this limitation by using robots to produce advanced formwork and reinforcement, allowing for combining CAD designs and CAM (Computer-Aided Manufacturing) technologies in a cost-effective way. After 4 and a half years of research and development, the end of the project was marked by the construction of a full-scale sculptural concrete structure located in Aarhus, Denmark. Such structure demonstrates a great part of the technological developments within the TailorCrete project, namely digital architecture, advanced robot technology for the prefabrication of non-standardized formwork and reinforcement, and advanced form filling with self-compacting concrete.

Objectives

• Develop and demonstrate an industrialized process for production of digital concrete architecture of the future using a radically new and cost-effective approach.
• Explore architectonic possibilities in digital fabricated structures
• Develop new formwork including formwork materials and coatings
• Develop new reinforcement for concrete structures in new shapes
• Develop novel digital fabrication techniques using automation and robot technologies
• Implementation of digital fabrication tools into digital design tools
• Expand existing standards and codes for concrete structures with new shapes

Partners

• Bekaert, BL
• Chalmers University, SE
• Czech Technical University, CZ
• Danish Technological Institute, DK
• DesignToProduction, CH
• Dragados, ES
• El Caleyo Nuevas Tecnologías, ES
• ETH Zürich, CH
• Gibotech A/S, DK
• Grace, DE
• MT Højgaard, DK
• Paschal Danmark A/S, DK
• Superpool, TR
• University of Southern Denmark, DK
• Unicon A/S, DK