Tooling Cardboard for Smart Reuse Testing a Parametric Tool for Adapting Waste Corrugated Cardboard to Fabricate Acoustic Panels and Concrete Formwork.

Abstract

The study presented in this paper is part of ongoing research that is exploring how digital design tools and technologies can support waste cardboard reuse for manufacturing architectural elements in a context of scarcity. For this study, we explore the use of a parametric design tool to design and fabricate three different architectural components using waste cardboard sheets: acoustic panels and two types of formwork for concrete. This design tool maximizes the smart reuse of a waste material and aids in the fabrication process by outputting instructions for cutting, scoring, and folding. This paper also demonstrates how parametric design tools can help reuse non-standard (dimensions variable) waste materials, mediating between measurable material conditions and desired material targets for designs.