LayGrade
ABOUT THE PROJECT
LAYGRADE is a Layer-Graded Wood Composite made from upcycled sawdust, developed to transform industrial by-products into high-performance architectural materials. The composite blends natural binders, including rosin, beeswax, and other agents, with the sawdust to produce stratified structures whose stiffness, strength, and transparency can be precisely tailored.
Performance control is achieved by sequencing and varying the height of individual layers, combined with sequential moulding and spatially adaptive CNC milling. This enables local tuning of both mechanical and optical behaviour within a single component. The approach aligns naturally with topology optimization through the Solid Isotropic Material with Penalization (SIMP) method, which, beyond binary solid–void definitions, can prescribe intermediate density values. In our workflow, those values are physically realised as graded layer sequences with corresponding mechanical and optical properties.
Particularly suited to applications requiring material efficiency and targeted performance, this material research offers a perspective on a new class of enclosure systems with integrated mechanical and light-modulating functions, transforming waste streams into engineered composites capable of meeting advanced architectural and structural demands.
PROJECT CREDITS
SDU CREATE, Led by Ass. Prof. Dr. Roberto Naboni - University of Southern Denmark
Research Team: Giulia Pelliccia, Roberto Naboni
Fabrication Support: Chiara Russo