Rising from rubble - Leveraging existing construction tools for upcycling concrete waste into slender walls

In this paper, we present a new method for upcycling concrete rubble waste into slender walls through the lightweight digital augmentation of mainstream construction machines. By using such method, the environmental impact of concrete construction and demolition is alleviated while leveraging accessible tools. In our proposed method, pieces of rubble are scanned from photos, robotically drilled to insert a lifting anchor, and assembled along their larger surface plane with a digitally augmented overhead crane. The highlight of this method is the orientation of irregular concrete debris through gravity, thus only requiring a lifting and a drilling tool for 3D orientation. Our method benefits a 2D stacking algorithm which accounts for the logistical constraints of construction sites. We document the construction process with augmented tools and implement them for the design and construction of two full-scale wall demonstrators. We also detail prospects of scalability for prefabrication, for onsite applications and potential use cases.