Wool Bricks

Here’s something to do with surplus wool: make wool bricks!

From the website https://buildabroad.org/2016/12/30/wool-bricks/

Carmen Galán and Carlos Rivera from the Schools of Architecture in the Universities of Seville (Spain) and Strathclyde (Glasgow, United Kingdom) are the researchers behind wool bricks. Wool bricks are made by adding wool fibers to the regular clay material used to make bricks, then combined with an alginate conglomerate, a natural polymer extracted from the cell walls of seaweed.

They are naturally dried (rather than the energy-intensive and polluting process of firing) and the result is a brick that is less prone to cracking and less likely to warp. They have shown to be stronger than unfired, stabilized earth bricks, and when made using locally-sourced products, can be labeled as a zero-carbon brick.

For regions where both clay-based soils and wool surplus products are available, “wool bricks” could have a bright future.

Interesting! I also know from my experience at the Wol Federatie, wool can be compressed. And if you leave wool for extended periods of time, it will bind to itself like velcro. With the added algae conglomerate, the wool becomes more stable for building purposes. It must be lightweight too, always good for lowering the footprint of architecture!

*thanks to Fonty’s FHK Architecture and Urbanism student Stephanie Lelieveld for bringing these bricks to my attention