| Abstract Scope |
The environmental impact of construction is significant, with buildings consuming 5% of global energy and contributing to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Concrete production, the most widely used building material, has also led to an alarming 35-fold increase in the last 65 years. In addition to these Earth-bound challenges, humanity faces the task of finding livable spaces beyond our planet within the next century. However, manufacturing and assembling structures in space present formidable complexities. Expensive transportation of materials and tools from Earth, coupled with the limitations imposed by extreme environments, pose significant barriers to achieving sustainable space structures. In this talk, I will present a new approach to address these challenges by utilizing tiny, lightweight pieces, termed eco-voxels, made from a renewably sourced bio-composite material that can be mass-produced through injection molding and create lattice structures offering a sustainable solution for rapidly constructing shelters at scale. |