Nadia Fani

Nadia presented bio-active constructions for reef recovery at the Holcim Foundation Sounding Board Rotterdam. The new system of 3D printing of the artificial reef substrate using powder-bed process allows corals to grow faster and healthier, as well as providing habitat for more diverse marine life.

The process allows different aggregate powders to be used in the printing process including recycled concrete, crushed sea shells, aragonite sand together with a binding agent. Other than extrusion-based processes and cast elements, the printed structure can be made of natural materials and allows for complex and porous structures, enabling better marine life growth.

Nadia Fani studied Computer Science at the Università degli Studi di Firenze, Italy. She led the building of the first large-scale concrete 3D printer that created the first fully 3D-printed bridge. She has 3D printed several large-scale artificial reefs that have been installed in the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Bahrain, and in the North Sea.

At Coastruction, she has built geometrically complex organic shapes while delivering unprecedented savings on material use. The designs use shapes that are found in nature (biomimicry) and which are optimized to local conditions. The printing process does not require support material for these complex shapes since the unbound powder surrounds the printed shape.