Green Klinkers (2024-09)¶

Unlike other materials, additive manufactured ceramics are not unre-strictedly suited for a digitally-driven in-situ production of buildings. The crucial necessity of a subsequent firing process after shaping limits their size to prevent distortion and as well as to enable a later shipping to the construction site. Also, common shaping processes, e.g. extrusion, provide high output rates and thereby ensure low unit-prices. The mere simplicity of the common brick offers an op-portunity to use additive manufacturing in order to overcome its geometric and functional restrictions. Whilst preceding projects in this filed mostly made use the geometric freedom of AM processes in order to create unique design solutions, this paper discusses an approach to also enhance the functionality of such constructions. The compo-nents investigated in this research provide a contemporary, generatively created, undulating design. By providing grooves filled with nutrient substrate, space for plants to grow on is created on the façade. Using undemanding crops like sedum and moss, a favorable behavior in terms of accrual, as well as a low expenditure in the later maintenance is expected. The so produced bricks stay within size of common masonry components and hereby enable a spotwise inclusion in the outer layer of common double-shelled masonry, as well as the opportunity of being used as this outer layer all alone. Besides the design and production of the respective components, also their as-sembly to a masonry bond and the accrual of the planted species is investigated, evaluated and discussed within this research.