Impossible Bricks
“Impossible Bricks” is a multidisciplinary project pairing together robotic fabrication and the development of natural building materials, based on food waste, oyster or shell formations, plant seeds, tree bark etc. Transcending traditional design and built processes, which can be best described as human-centric and have previously acted selfishly towards the natural environment, “Impossible Bricks” creates an empathetic, conscious interaction between man, environment and technology.
“Impossible Bricks” is a multidisciplinary project pairing together robotic fabrication and the development of natural building materials, based on food waste, oyster or shell formations, plant seeds, tree bark etc. Transcending traditional design and built processes, which can be best described as human-centric and have previously acted selfishly towards the natural environment, “Impossible Bricks” creates an empathetic, conscious interaction between man, environment and technology.
The process consists in on-going research on both materiality and new formulations and interpretations of digital fabrication, as well as its software counterparts. It is proposing a shift that disrupts the current narrative of consumption – by turning the exhaustion of resources into the inception point of construction, taking inspiration from “Impossible Food”, created as an alternative to eating meat, and therefore cease the disregard of the human impact on other species or nature itself.
- 2021
- Grantee: Lidia Ratoi
Lidia Ratoi is a Romanian-born robotic fabrication researcher, graduated from IAAC Barcelona, and has previously completed her master’s studies in architecture at UAUIM, Bucharest. She is currently working in Hong Kong University, Department of Architecture, her research investigating the pairing of robotic fabrication with the development of bioplastic materials, and she is coordinating year 2 undergraduate degree. Her work advocates for an ethical use of technology within the architectural realm, and the discovery of sustainable solutions and materials for design – previous projects including the robotically printed underwater coral environments “Reformative Coral Habitats” and the self-regulating environment 3D printed house prototype “TerraPerforma”. She has previously worked as a researcher at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts (KADK), School of Architecture, where she also teached within the Extreme Environments program, and has written for publications such as Arch2O and CLOT, and conducted workshops with worldwide computational design association DesignMorphine.