Research, Product engineeringCredits: LineUp Ocean, 3D Concrete

LineUp Ocean

The upblocks: bio-inspired wave attenuators and artificial coral reef developed with LineUp Ocean and 3D printed by 3D Concrete in a concrete where half the sand is replaced by recycled oyster shells.

LineUp Ocean, a Montpellier company founded in 2022, develops coastal resilience solutions that work against the logic of dikes, groynes and breakwaters. Where those set a solid mass against the sea, the upblocks modules are permeable and reversible. Their open geometry, a lattice of diamonds or a cluster of tubes, lets water through while dissipating wave energy, and helps beaches re-sand naturally. The design is bio-inspired: the same hollows and roughness double as habitat and support marine biodiversity. The concrete replaces half of its sand with recycled oyster shells, which lowers its carbon footprint. The pieces are printed in the workshop on a robotic arm, every bead staying visible on the finished surface. They are the first 3D printed wave attenuators of their kind.

Concrete / Recycled Oyster Shells

The robot arm beside a wall of diamond lattice modules, a tubed piece waiting in front.

Diamond lattice blocks behind a round module of clustered tubes set in a shallow tray.

A module fresh off the bed, its top a maze of thick coils above a ribbed base.

Macro across the winding coils, the grain of the concrete raw on every bead.

Médiathèque de Saleilles BDC