Illinois Professor Mark Taylor holding a brick of CornCrete.
“There’s an abundance of agricultural fiber produced as a byproduct of crop cultivation,“ he said. “The combine harvesters come by and take out the corn, and everything else gets sent out the back as waste. In some cases, this material is gathered in windrows and taken for animal bedding, but I think there’s also an opportunity to take some of this material and put it to higher value uses.”
Working out of the Fresh Press Studio, Taylor collaborates with Art + Design Professor Eric Benson to explore and experiment with “how agricultural fibers can be used in three dimensions.” These uses occupy a spectrum of scales, from microscopic fiber analyses — to develop strong and long-lasting paper — up to the architectural scale on which Taylor is currently focused: the construction of monolithic walls.