Concrete may have found it's killer app in graphene, this versatile material that could revolutionize the building industry. Solving a problem? Graphene may sound like some fancy new kind of glue, but it's a very strange substance and, unfortunately, also very expensive. This makes it impractical to use on a large scale. A solution for this might come in the form of nano-scale composite materials, an idea pioneered by the Danish architects Bjarke Ingels and Jakob Langebo. Last year, they became the first firm to use this approach commercially, when they used nano-composite materials made from concrete and organic plant fibers to construct a two story tall pavilion called Crystal, a building which became a center of controversy around the time it was unveiled in September 2015. Image: Ingels & Partner "These materials create a kind of hybrid between concrete and timber, which allows the massing of the buildings and the forms to be similar to concrete, but with the elasticity and strength of timber. It is not only about the form, but about all components and connections of the structure. This creates a building material which is flexible and with which it is possible to work much more freely." Ingels writes on the website for Bjarke Ingels Group. Image: BIJRKE INGELS Ingels & Partner was chosen for the project because the company was the first to use the innovative new nano-composite material in a large-scale project, said Jan Christian Møller, chief executive of Danish Architecture Centre in an interview with Bustler last year. Image: Jacob Langebo "Ingels & Partner are the leading light in concrete and they have been the first to use the nano-composite material in a large-scale project. Their ambition was to build a lightweight material with great potential to be used in architecture in concrete. At the time, [when the building] was presented, all they were showing was only the shell and facade and [the building] was also the first project to show that they were open to new ideas in architecture." Møller said. Image: Bijke Ingels The architects said it was "too early" to discuss why it was the Danish architectural firm who got the job. "We are not really interested in the debate about who was behind it," said Jacob Langebo. "But we have seen it as a chance to show that the potential of the material and its properties were what made us choose it." Image: Bijke Ingels Not only is concrete-based nano-composite a relatively new development, but so is using concrete in such a variety of ways. "The most interesting thing in this respect is the way we have approached concrete—as a material for construction rather than as a building material that has to adhere to certain standards," Langebo said. Image: BIJRKE INGELS Concrete is something that the world has known for over a century, but the Danish architects' vision of what it can be and how it can be used hasn't been thought of before. Concrete might be the new stone? It's inarguably an industrial material, but at the same time, it is more than that. Image: BIJRKE INGELS "There is nothing new about concrete because its very versatile," says Ingels. "It is good at the ground but you can also put it in the air and on the top. You can build buildings or use it as a table. You can design really unusual things like pavilions. It might be as heavy or light as you need it to be." Image: BIJRKE INGELS Nano-scale materials such as concrete also provide a way to solve the world's waste problem, said Ingels, because nano-composite can be recycled and reused. The Danish architects were inspired by nature, and are convinced that this process will lead to even more creative projects and innovations in the near future. Image: Bijke Ingels "We know that the construction industry has so much potential to be used. The way we approach the concrete that we can use in our construction. It is a material that a lot of waste and so we are very interested in finding out how we can use it in a more sustainable way. It's very exciting what is happening today—how we use concrete." Image: BIJRKE INGELS Ingels & Partner's latest project is a building at Amager Festival Market and Conference Centre, just a stone's throw away from Crystal. As of now, the building has about four floors, but the structure is still in the early stages of development, so its uses are hard to ascertain. Source: ArchDaily.co.uk