From Roman Concrete to Zipangu Concrete

Industrial material standardisation can secure technical reliability by bound-ing physical variation, and in many specification systems this is achieved byprioritising codified performance requirements over geographical provenance.This paper proposes Zipangu Concrete not as a finished concrete mixture ortechnological replication of ancient recipes, but as an architectural specifica-tion protocol (ZC= ⟨Dq , K, A⟩) that investigates how place-bound mineralstreams—specifically volcanic ash collected within the Sakurajima–Kagoshimaregion—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 assuranceand traceability regimes; rather, it complements these regimes by making explicitthe question of whether evidence established for one qualified material statewarrants 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 concreteserves as a historically bounded precedent that visualises why processing historyis relevant to material qualification, rather than acting as a technological templateor proving the theoretical framework itself. Evaluating published empirical dataon mechanically activated Sakurajima ash mortars, the paper illustrates howDREF can be applied to an existing evidential record, structuring an actionablearchitectural specification chain for standardisation without geographical erasure.