- Team
- Chi Zhang
- Course
- Biomimetics in Design, Spring 2025
Resilient Walls
Lightweight, Load-Optimized Modular Brick System
- Grasshopper
- Rhino 3D
- 3D printing
- Material testing
- Biomimicry research
Problem
More than 60% of people in Guyana, Tuvalu and the Bahamas face 100-year flood hazards (Archer et al.), and gabion walls are heavy, material-intensive and slow to assemble.
Approach
Modular bricks that borrow bird-bone porosity for light strength and conch-shell layering for crack resistance.
Outcome
Clear 1:20 scale prototypes with three density types and alternating grain direction, assembled into a modular wall.
- My role
- Ran material testing and developed the 3D-printing process; translated the biological research into the brick system
How might we make flood walls light enough to deploy fast, strong enough for extreme conditions, and modular enough to reuse?
Biological inspiration
Bird bones → lightweight strength
High internal porosity keeps strength while cutting weight (Sullivan et al.).
Conch shells → fracture resistance
A three-tiered layered structure deflects cracks (Osuna-Mascaró et al.).
How I built it
01
Map the stresses
Topology optimization (run by teammate Chi Zhang in Millipede) mapped stress lines and three density zones.
Topology optimization (Grasshopper)
02
Set the grain
Grain follows the stress lines and alternates between neighboring bricks to deflect cracks.
Parametric design
03
Standardize the bricks
Three lengths (30, 45 and 65 mm) at a 15 mm height, with density set by shell thickness.
Modular system design
04
Test the prints
Iterative print tests got to 0% infill, varying density through shell thickness alone and orienting each brick to its grain.
Material testing, 3D printing
Outcome
1:20
scale clear PLA prototypes
3
brick densities, set by shell thickness alone
Assembly · click to enlarge
Shell thickness variation
Assembly from the stress map
Assembled bricks
Next steps
Bio-based filaments
Researched wood-based and biocomposite filaments to reduce microplastics in water and allow composting.
Friction joinery
Micro-textured, friction-based connections inspired by shell structures.
Low-tech version
Rammed earth that keeps the grain-direction principle for places without 3D printers.
Validation and scale
Flood-load testing and full-scale 15 × 15 × 30 cm bricks.
