What if building materials could be assembled, disassembled, and reused as easily as Lego bricks? That’s the vision a team of MIT engineers hopes to realize with a new type of masonry made from recycled glass. Using custom 3D-printing technology provided by Evenline, an MIT spinoff, the team created tough, multilayered glass bricks, each shaped like a figure eight, designed to fit together and stack. The bricks can be easily disassembled for reuse in new structures.
“Glass as a structural material kind of boggles people’s minds,” says Michael Stern (2009 B.A., 2015 M.A.), founder of Evenline and co-author of a paper on the work. “We’re showing that this is an opportunity to push the boundaries of what’s been done in architecture.”
Stern and Kaitlyn Becker (2009 graduate), an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and co-author, were inspired in part by their experiences as undergraduates in MIT’s Glass Lab.
“I found the material fascinating,” says Stern, who later designed a 3D printer that could deposit molten recycled glass. “I started thinking about how glass printing could find its place.”
“I’m excited about pushing the boundaries of design and manufacturing for challenging materials with interesting characteristics, like glass, its optical properties, and recyclability,” says Becker, who began exploring these ideas as a professor. “As long as it’s not contaminated, glass can be recycled almost infinitely.”
For the new study, Becker, Stern, and co-authors Daniel Massimino (master’s 2024), Charlotte Folinus (graduate 2020, master’s 2022), both of MIT, and Ethan Townsend of Evenline used a glass printer that works in conjunction with a furnace to fuse crushed glass bottles into a material that can be deposited in layered patterns. They printed prototype bricks using soda-lime glass, which is commonly used in glassblowing studios. Two round pins made of a different material—similar to the interlocking joints in Lego blocks—are embedded in each brick so that they can interlock.
Another material sandwiched between the bricks prevents scratches or cracks, but can be removed if the structure needs to be disassembled and recycled. The eight-shaped design of the prototypes allows for the construction of curved walls, though the recycled bricks can also be remelted in the printer and transformed into new shapes. The group is also studying the possibility that more parts of the fitting mechanism could also be made from printed glass.
The bricks’ mechanical strength was tested using a hydraulic press that compressed them until they began to fracture. The strongest ones withstood pressures comparable to those of concrete blocks. The researchers have already used the bricks to build a curved wall and are aiming to create increasingly larger, self-supporting structures.
“We’re thinking in stages that lead to buildings,” says Stern, “and we want to start with something like a pavilion—a temporary structure that people can interact with, and that can be reconfigured for a second project. And you can imagine these blocks could have many lives.”
( fontes: MIT Technology Review)
