New materials

The age of materials

The early ages of human history have been named after the materials we used: stone, bronze, iron – today it would be the age of silicon. But human activity is no longer dominated by a single material. Nowadays many different materials and combinations of these abound.

The materials of the future are already here. They are present in many of the products we use in our everyday lives – from self-cleaning façades to energy-dynamic and biodegradable building components.

Materials used to be something you designed with. Today, materials have become design objects, which can be designed to meet specific needs and requirements with regard to sustainability, functionality, strength, durability and aesthetics.

It is now possible to imitate natural structures at a microscopic scale and to control chemical processes to a much greater extent than it was only ten years ago. The ability to design structures and bonds makes it possible to design materials at a microscopic scale.

Ultimately, the periodic system is our building blocks. The question is not what material you choose, but which properties you want to incorporate into specific products or projects.

Towards a sustainable future

New materials can help us find solutions to many of the challenges we are facing in the development of green architecture. These include materials that can store and release energy, and buildings that can clean the air for pollution and smog and thus create a better climate.

Materials are not only chosen based on static and aesthetic needs; they are evaluated with reference to their life cycles, key parameters being production, freight, service life and degradability. With these aspects in mind, architecture takes part in a broader discussion which concerns how we as human beings effect the environment.

Nano technology

Nano technology is an interdisciplinary science. A crossfield in which new knowledge about the molecular world emerges. A mixture of medical and materials science spiced with mechanical and electrical engineering. It is in this crossfield between the different sciences that nano technology plays out its part. It is materials design at such a small scale that appearance vanishes and only property remains.

Using new technology, materials with enhanced or completely new properties can be developed. It is now possible to design, characterize, produce and apply structures by controlling size and matter at nanoscale either bottom-up or top-down.

Composites

In its most basic form, a composite material is one which is composed of at least two elements working together to produce a material, the properties of which are different to the properties of the two elements on their own. The development of fibre and textile-reinforced polymer composites was a breakthrough for materials design. Instead of being bound by the given properties of a material, it suddenly became possible to attain specific properties.

Advanced composites come with a number of properties which are hard or in some cases impossible to match by traditional materials such as steel, aluminium and wood. Due to their low density, high strength and plasticity, composites are today primarily used in the productions of boats, cars and planes and also in other lightweight constructions. However, composites hold out considerable potential when it comes to realising new form languages due to their plasticity, endurance and low heat-conducting abilities.

Smart materials

Smart materials change in response to changing conditions in their surroundings such as changes in temperature, air humidity, electricity or magnetism.

An example of property-changing materials is thermo-chromatic materials, which change colour and transparency at changing temperatures. They are, for example, used in self-regulating car windscreens. Other materials have shape memory and the ability to collect energy from their surroundings.

The development of responsive and intelligent materials is ongoing in fields like the pharmaceutical, space and defence industries.