Abstract
The processing of sugarcane leads to mountains of waste: pulped fibres that are generally burned or left to rot. This project aims to design a plant for processing this agricultural waste to re-use it as a construction material. The thesis entails both the design of this centre, as well as the development of a new building material, using reclaimed fibres from agricultural crop waste. The coastal region of KwaZulu-Natal contains the majority of South Africa’s sugar cane planta-tions. Once processed to extract sugar, the tough, fibrous cane waste is simply discarded. These waste fibres, however, are very resilient strands of plant matter. They are rich in concentrated or crystalized cellulose which creates high tensile strength...
M.A. (Architecture)