Arzo - Funicular floor prototype
A funicular floor of 17 printed elements, made from marble quarry waste by a printer set up inside the quarry.
In Ticino, rock flour can make up 40% of a marble quarry’s output: a disposal problem with no market. For this project the printer was installed directly inside the Cava di Arzo, next to where the waste is stored, and the quarry’s own fines became the feedstock.
The result is a rib-stiffened funicular floor, adapted from an earlier BRG design to the material and the process: 17 discrete elements assembled with dry joints into a vault supported at its corners, with the horizontal thrust taken by post-tensioned steel ties along the edges. A compression-only form suits printed stone, since it uses the material’s compressive strength and doesn’t rely on tension. The floor was exhibited at Palazzo Mora during the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale.
