“The Digital Production research group has been for years exploring robotic production applied to circular materials. Moreover, the group is linked to the Circular Design and Entrepreneurship lectorate, initiators of CIRCOLLAB. Thus participating in this program was logical for us,” says Malé-Alemany
Computational design
The senior lecturer and researcher has a vision for upcycling waste materials, with the added value offered by design and manufacturing technologies. “Our group uses computational design and industrial robots to turn residual flows (like waste wood) into valuable new objects,’” she explains. In computational design, algorithms and parameters are used to solve complex design problems. This is the case when you want to use materials that do not come in standard measures, which is mostly the case in circular streams. Each step of the design and production are written as a set of instructions or ‘code’ that can be re-applied as a custom process, even if the material available has changed. Moreover, this software can help you optimize the use of material, if you have a database of the residual stream. Having this flexibility is critical to design and fabricate circular applications.
Working with residual flows
Working with residual flows requires a completely different approach than we are used to, says Malé-Alemany. “Wood from the store has properties that are known in advance, such as length, thickness and quality. And you can order the quantity you think you need. This gives room to design without constraints and make objects that can easily be reproduced. But with residual flows the challenge is to make them with the material you received, which is not homogeneous” says the senior lecturer.
Starting with a lounge chair from collected waste wood, to a reception desk made from left-over wooden planks: many circular designs have so far been tested and prototyped. ‘These ‘conversation pieces’ were made with robots but still involved a lot of handcraft work, which is time-intensive and difficult to scale up,” says Malé-Alemany. "Fully automating design and production processes can offer a solution."
Interesting business case
Malé-Alemany and her research team are working hard in this area. ‘For the hospitality sector, which has a high renovation turnover, we are researching what kind of furniture can be made from residual wood. We want to know if there is an interesting business case that justifies the existance of a circular wood factory.”
Insights gained from such projects are actively shared within CIRCOLLAB. “We also organize expeditions to and workshops in the Robot Lab. We aim to offer them as part of a Lifelong Learning track on circular design and production with industry 4.0 technologies,” says Malé-Alemany. The researcher and her team are about to start a EU funded project focussed on wood reuse for mass timber construction, and also campaigning for funding for follow-up research at the lab.
Get to work
Malé-Alemany likes to see how many disciplines and organizations come together in CIRCOLLAB. “I hope that in five years we will have built a solid platform to share critical knowledge and tangible experiences – with each other and the outside world,” she says. In this network, more than successes it is essential to share the challenges. That is precisely where we collectively learn and most support each other.”
“We can and must now make a difference for future generations, start acting as concretely as possible” emphasizes Malé-Alemany. It is important that we seek for positive impact beyond ourselves, our own discipline, our own organization, our own country. The researcher can't wait to get to work together
Getting to know each other
“An initiative such as CIRCOLLAB helps connect with like-minded people and disseminate knowledge. The sooner we get to know each other, the easier we can work together and get concrete, impactful examples out there’.