About Project

Calcium carbonate is a common material widely spread on Earth; it is dissolved in rivers and lakes; we can find it in skeletons and shells; it forms “tufa” and “stalagmites”; it builds up caves and mountains and it is also in our kettles and water pipes. It has various applications in our life in agriculture, food industry, glass industry and cement production. However, the main resource of limestone nowadays is mostly from quarries, we extract from the land and create messy “tailings” in the landscape. What kind of alternatives could we find in our surroundings?

One of the forms of calcium carbonate is “limescale”, a matter we produce in our water softening processes yet is often overlooked and discarded. In my research, I attempt to reintroduce limescale as a promising material to build and live with. I research how to reconfigure limescale and focus on creating “geopolymers”, a chemical process to bind inorganic materials together. Based on the material research, I speculate what a “neo stone age” would look like, and how this harvesting and production method could be integrated into the city, and change both our interiors and exteriors. Can we become Earth dwellers in this domesticated landscape?

• Upload images:
  Title: Collection of Neo stonewares
  Description: Made from geo-mimicking processes
  Title: Lime pellets
  Description: The resource is harvested from water softening process. It is a by-product of the water treatment process.
  Title: Seashells + sand
  Description: It is made from sand casting.
  Title: Collection of Neo stonewares #2
  Description: Made from sand casting and dripping.
  Title: A pot made from lime pellets
  Description: The pot will be absorbed by plants.
  Title: A table
  Description: With infrastructure inside; like concrete but without cement; like ceramic but no need baking.
  Title: Material samples
  Description: With slags.
  Title: Material sample #1
  Description: Made from limestone
  Title: Material sample #2
  Description: Made from limescale
  Title: The Lime pellets
  Description: Harvested from a water treatment plant.
  Title: The limescale
  Description: Harvested from an ex-swimming pool.
• Designers/architects: Erco Lai
• Company: ercoffice
• Nominations: Product design: object | Eco project
• Add video: https://vimeo.com/563840080
• Short description of the project:

  It started from an observation of seeing limescale generated in a kettle. In a way, we human actually keep producing "limestone" in our home everyday but now we just want to remove it. Thus, I began to do material research on limescale and tried to make stonewares from this artificial limestone.

Designers/Architects

Erco Lai

Company

ercoffice