Waste Acoustics: The Journey of Coffee

An installation by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center for Architecture Science and Ecology. How can we reimagine waste? What could use coffee grounds become? Working with Industry City coffee shops to gather their coffee grounds, we’ve made a new “coffee biocomposite” material that uses a starch binder and jute fibers from the burlap sacks coffee is shipped in. We call it “coffee clay.” Our goal is to turn coffee clay into acoustic panels with measurable performance. This is the first design iteration. We are The Center for Architecture Science and Ecology (CASE), an Industry City-based research center focused on the future of the built environment.

An installation by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Center for Architecture Science and Ecology.