CanoPIT by DumoLab challenges the permanence of building construction with a seasonal farmer’s market canopy made of fruit waste materials.
The project transforms unavoidable food waste from stone fruits into bio-based printable blends outputting strong, healthy, and biodegradable functional large-scale surfaces. An interdisciplinary approach combines biomaterial blend science and hierarchical additive fabrication technology to develop a multi-layered bio-surface acting as seasonal weather protection for community events, beacon for a waste-free sustainable materials education, and a testing platform collecting data to channel future design for decay. The system is a bilayer with a base made from pulverized avocado pits bound by a biopolymer, and a top motif made from lignin microfiber sourced from yard trimmings. The mixture is printed flat and warps naturally as its water content evaporates directed by the top layer, which confers structural inertia and tensile capacity with its stressline-aware toolpath. Current research looks at scaling the system up and is described in an upcoming article for ACSA Conference 2024 imagining a market where to shop for stone fruits like avocado beneath a CanoPIT shelter. At the end of the season, these canopy materials will nourish the soil as they decay.
Team: Graduate Researchers: Yuanyi Cen (MLA’24), Ji Yoon Bae (PhD Architecture’27), Andreina Sojo (MLA/March’25). Undergraduate Researchers: Abby Weintein (BA Design’25). PI: Dr. Laia Mogas-Soldevila.
Funding: Design, methods, and materials developed by DumoLab, primary funding from Penn University Research Foundation URF Grant and Johnson&Johnson Foundation WiSTEM Award to Dr. Mogas-Soldevila.