Urban Reef, Rotterdam (Pilot Installation)

Rotterdam, Netherlands, Europe

Completed · Civic · 3D-Printed Bioreceptive Urban Furniture · Temperate · 2022

3D-printed concrete structures with engineered surface textures designed to accelerate colonisation by moss, lichen, insects, and birds, installed in Rotterdam's public realm. The project demonstrated that urban hardscape can be designed from the outset as habitat infrastructure rather than retrofitted with planters.

Innovation highlights

• 3D-printed concrete with bioreceptive surface micro-textures for targeted species colonisation
• computational design of pore geometry to retain moisture and encourage moss and lichen
• integrated drainage and water retention within printed form
• additive manufacturing enables geometry impossible with formwork
• monitored biodiversity outcomes used to iterate print geometry

Client / Developer

City of Rotterdam / Urban Reef

Architect

Urban Reef (Jan Kokol & Anna Haas)

Engineer

Arup Netherlands

Type

3D-Printed Bioreceptive Urban Furniture

#3D printing #bioreceptive #biodiversity #urban ecology #additive manufacturing #concrete

View source