The Lego-like bricks made by MCC machine.
A company called Mobile Crisis Construction (MCC), from Perth, Western Australia, has developed a new method for turning rubble from destroyed buildings into bricks.
The company’s mobile manufacturing machine is on its way to Ukraine to help rebuild infrastructure and housing.
It creates Lego-like blocks that are easier to build with than common clay bricks, making them ideal for war and disaster scenarios.
The world’s fastest brick-laying construction robot was recently also developed in Perth by a company called FBR. MCC is based on the other side of the city, and its model is focused on practicality as well as speed of deployment.
The company’s moving brick factory makes bricks from the rubble of destroyed buildings. These can be stacked and joined together like Lego to build mortarless structures.
The method can be deployed in wartorn areas and regions affected by natural disasters to quickly build infrastructure. It can travel in a 10-ft (3-m) standard shipping container, meaning it can be quickly deployed.
It does require a diesel generator for power and a freestanding hammer mill for crushing debris into a fine powder. That fine powder is fed into the machine with a small amount of water and cement.
According to MCC, the machine can build up to 8,000 blocks a day, which is enough to build a school, or three large houses, according to a report from New Atlas.
MCC refers to its blocks as “Crisis Blocks” or “LayGo Blocks”, as they aren’t shaped like traditional bricks. Much like Lego, they have an interlocking design that means they can be laid without using mortar.
This allows for quicker, easier construction in areas that need buildings fast. Mortar and skilled labor might be hard to come by in areas affected by natural disasters or wars.
MCC’s machine can build these interlocking bricks in different sizes, ranging from around 100 x 100 mm to 240 x 120 mm.
Each block takes seven days to cure and harden. They can be used for construction after that period, and they will reach their full strength in 28 days. According to MCC, they are earthquake, fire, and cyclone resistant.
MCC carried out a crowdfunding campaign to send one of its machines to Ukraine, at a cost of AU$120,000 (US$79,000). Once there, it will build emergency shelters, as well as critical infrastructure near Kiev.
It turns out that the Lego company were onto something with their easy-to-use plastic toy bricks. The European Space Agency also recently developed a similar method to MCC, but for space exploration.
They drew inspiration from Lego bricks to develop interconnecting space bricks that would make it easier to build shelters on the Moon.
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Chris Young Chris Young is a journalist, copywriter, blogger and tech geek at heart who’s reported on the likes of the Mobile World Congress, written for Lifehack, The Culture Trip, Flydoscope and some of the world’s biggest tech companies, including NEC and Thales, about robots, satellites and other world-changing innovations.
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