Additive Manufacturing Processes for Architectural Design: Rethinking 3DCP through a lens of Sustainability

Architecture faces an urgent need to adjust design and construction practices to reduce environmental impacts, and this has brought a critical focus on architecture’s relationship and use of concrete. Once considered a wonder material, a growing awareness of concrete’s environmental impacts and architecture’s role in its overconsumption has led to polemic discourses on the use and role of concrete in architectural design. In this context, 3D concrete printing (3DCP) has emerged as an alternative, novel fabrication technology with the potential to help reduce concrete consumption. However, whilst 3DCP has seen rapid development, its role in architectural design to support sustainability strategies remains unexplored beyond geometric and material optimisations.
This thesis investigates how 3DCP can support more sustainable construction practices by situating this technology within broader architectural sustainability discourses. It pursues two interconnected aims: an analytical aim reviewing current literature and office workflows, and an experimental aim that tests alternative approaches by which 3DCP can support architectural sustainability strategies. The research is contextualised against larger discourses on sustainability in architecture, in particular those of carbon impacts and circularity. It is positioned within the field of relative sustainability thinking, and makes a conceptual priority of environmental sustainability over social or economic. Mapping existing 3DCP research into the three key sustainability domains minimisation, circularity, and performance, the thesis proposes the notion of expanded sustainabilities as a way to move beyond siloed solutions and interlink these domains within novel solutions for architectural sustainability strategies grounded in 3DCP.
The research is conducted as an industrial PhD in collaboration with the architectural office of Henning Larsen (HLA), employing a practice-based research approach using both participant observation and research through design as the main methodological frameworks. The research experiments are undertaken in three contexts, where 3DCP is investigated in its application in current practice, its use in new-build construction, and within transformation projects. These experiments develop and test a schematic digital workflow which embeds 3DCP into broader architectural design workflows, a prototypical circularity indicator tool enabling the evaluation of material flows, design for disassembly ratings and comparison against carbon calculations, and an alternative evaluation model which combines carbon calculations with circularity metrics to give a more holistic overview of environmental impacts. The experiments also contribute two novel modular architectural elements, the hybrid slab and the hempcrete façade, where 3DCP is embedded as part of a modular hybrid material system.
This thesis contributes to the ongoing research field of 3DCP for architectural application by examining the information and workflow requirements required to increase the accessibility of 3DCP within architectural design, and by demonstrating how 3DCP can enable architectural sustainability strategies. It contributes to ongoing discourse on sustainability in 3DCP by positioning 3DCP not just as a fabrication or optimisation technology but as an enabling tool which, when designed for expanded sustainabilities, can support architectural strategies to reduce environmental impacts. By bridging technological capabilities with design considerations and sustainability metrics, the research offers architects practical pathways to leverage 3DCP for more sustainable construction while contributing to the broader discourse on environmental responsibility in architectural production.