From Roman Concrete to Zipangu Concrete:

Abstract

Industrial material standardisation can secure technical reliability by bound- ing physical variation, and in many specification systems this is achieved by prioritising codified performance requirements over geographical provenance. This paper proposes Zipangu Concrete not as a finished concrete mixture or technological replication of ancient recipes, but as an architectural specifica- tion protocol (ZC= ⟨Dq , K, A⟩) that investigates how place-bound mineral streams—specifically volcanic ash collected within the Sakurajima–Kagoshima region—can acquire engineering reproducibility without erasing their geograph- ical provenance. Derived from the Diachronic Relatum Eligibility Framework (DREF), the methodological architecture specifies material state qualification (Dq = ⟨Π, M, T, C⟩) and establishes that experimental evidence is strictly claim- relative (E= E(Dq , K)). DREF does not replace established quality assurance and traceability regimes; rather, it complements these regimes by making explicit the question of whether evidence established for one qualified material state warrants a claim concerning another. The paper delineates physical identity, regu- latory status, and architectural eligibility as distinct domains within specification, treating “waste” as an administrative management designation. Roman concrete serves as a historically bounded precedent that visualises why processing history is relevant to material qualification, rather than acting as a technological template or proving the theoretical framework itself. Evaluating published empirical data on mechanically activated Sakurajima ash mortars, the paper illustrates how DREF can be applied to an existing evidential record, structuring an actionable architectural specification chain for standardisation without geographical erasure.