PORTEFEUILLE

Concrete is the world's most widely used construction material, but its production is responsible for nearly 8% of global CO emissions. Although engineers can design structures using significantly less concrete, these optimized solutions are rarely built because conventional timber and steel moulds are too expensive and inflexible to manufacture complex geometries.
Foldcast develops low-carbon concrete building elements made with digitally fabricated, recyclable paper formwork. Using proprietary computational design software, each mould is generated and manufactured to optimize the structural geometry of a concrete element. The result is a production process that reduces material consumption by up to 50% and embodied carbon by up to 40%.
The InnoBooster project focuses on Derma, Foldcast's prefabricated concrete façade system. During the project, the technology will be validated through full-scale industrial prototypes, life-cycle and cost assessments, and collaborations with leading industrial partners. The goal is to prepare the technology for commercial deployment and enable a new generation of sustainable, structurally optimized concrete buildings.

Foldcast builds on several years of research at the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), where the core technology was developed and protected through an international patent application. The technology has already been validated through full-scale prototypes, including and optimized floor slab (SlabX) and prefabricated staircase (Vertebra), and is currently being tested in a 7 7 m structural slab demonstrator at ETH Zurich in collaboration with industrial partners (NCCR Demonstator).

The InnoBooster project represents the next step towards market entry. During the next twelve months, the team will:
- develop the Derma façade system into a market-ready product;
- further develop the computational design and digital fabrication workflow;
- manufacture and validate full-scale façade prototypes in an industrial environment;
- perform environmental and economic assessments;
- perform outreach activities with façade manufacturers, contractors and real estate developers for the first commercial projects.

Following the project, Foldcast aims to launch its first commercial façade applications in Switzerland and expand through partnerships with concrete prefabrication companies in Europe.