Research & Innovation

Following an initial partnership in 2008 with Columbia's Graduate School of Architecture (New York), this year Lafarge is sponsoring a new program, the MDS (Materials-based Design Studio), the main focus of which will be construction materials and their use in urban planning.

Lafarge experts have presented talks to students on Columbia's program:

• Gilles Chanvillard, Director of the Structured Materials Division at the Lafarge Research center introduced the Group's innovative concretes.
• Constant Van Aerschot, Director of Construction Trends, presented the challenges of sustainable construction.

During the 2nd stage of the program, students will discover Paris and its concrete architecture, as well as the Lafarge Research center in Lyon. The tour of the Group's laboratory, the largest in the world for construction materials, will give the students an opportunity to meet the Group's engineers and scientists in person. It will also be a chance to find out about the scientific aspects of concrete and attend demonstrations of the Group's innovative concretes.

The aim of the MDS, which was launched on January 22nd, 2010, is to study what new concretes can offer in the context of densification of US cities and their contribution to structures' thermal and environmental performances. Students particularly study the impact this densification has on construction methods. The densification of cities requires higher constructions that are closer together, which could threaten the traditional US model of large expanses of wooden houses.
So what advantages can concrete offer to redefine these models based on sustainable construction principles?
To answer this question, students are not only supported by professors and architects, but also Lafarge's engineers, scientists and experts.

The program includes an exercise to redevelop part of the city of El Paso in Texas where the authorities want to double the density of homes to make up for the shortfall in real-estate in this rapidly-expanding city. Students must therefore come up with various uses for the site, including high-density homes, taking into consideration the potential uses of concrete in relation to environmental, thermal and structural performance. For this they will use the Group's technologies and innovations.

Ye Yang (China): "I was interested in the practical aspects of this course - the possibility to work with engineers, for example."

 

Wanlika Kaewkamchand (Thailand): "I like the idea of pushing concrete to its limits, which is what we are doing on this course."