The Climate Concrete project is based on collaboration with Cemex Global R&D on the equally named selective subject at the Barcelona School of Architecture, International University of Catalonia.

The third edition of the workshop has involved materials other than concrete, providing complementary properties to the ones given by concrete. Therefore, this edition was named “Shared performance”, taking the best performance of each of the materials participating on the construction system.

Also this year, very original proposals were developed by the students during the classes in the first phase of the workshop.  Bricks, plastic, wood and glass were combined with concrete to provide climate specific bioclimatic performance envisioned by the participants.

During the workshop in the laboratory of Cemex Global R&D, where the experts and engineers from the company become involved, sharing their knowledge in order to make the original proposal of the students realistic and producible.

This year, the brainstorming between all the team members brought an idea of a façade panel composed by wooden frame, and 2 types of concrete, high-performance concrete Resilia™ and insulating concrete Insularis™.

The composition of the panel allows it to constitute a wall with all the properties required to be a self-standing envelope, with no need for any other layer. This way, the wood and concrete is visible in the interior as well as in the exterior. The insulating concrete provides an effective thermal insulation, while the denser concrete allows to take advantage of its thermal inertia in the enterior.

The result of this workshop is now being studied and tested in order to apply in the first architectural project.