mperial College London’s Structures Laboratory, or ‘the concrete lab’, is a slightly daunting place where large machines clang and chunks of grey matter set in moulds. However, everyone here is very convivial and jolly greetings abound. In the midst of this orderly yet experimental zone, a banterous pair of young British scientists, Sam Draper and Barnaby Shanks, head towards a small back room where they are scaling up carbon neutral concrete from tiny cubes to bricks. Wait, carbon-neutral concrete? Concrete has been a strong, convenient and attractive (to many architecture lovers at least) material used for buildings, cities and infrastructure for centuries –
