The Future of Building Materials

The types of materials used to build a home are often as or more important than a building’s architecture and location. The types of materials used can leave a big impact on the energy efficiency of a home, its ability to withstand the passage of time and extreme weather, and how easy it was to construct too. How much ecological and financial cost producing the construction materials is also very important.

When we discuss the future use of building materials, we are actually discussing how we can solve a variety of modern concerns;

• The cost of construction
• The amount of pollution created during the construction and manufacture of the materials
• increasing the tensile strength
• increasing durability from shock, weather and time
• supply.

While an answer has yet to be given, definitively, for many of these issues, we can see a number of promising prospects:

• Nanotechnology is one of the greatest developments in the world that has happened with the last twenty-thirty years. It is still only in the early stages of development, but already we’ve seen the development of nanotubes, which have a far greater tensile than anything else currently used in construction. As we’ve said though, these are just the first step; the room for growth with the capabilities is nanotechnology could completely revolutionise the way we build our homes, how fast we build them, and how long they last.
• Solar Panels. While these have also been developed, if we can see them become easier and cheaper to construct, we could see them become a lot more common in new buildings. Already we’ve seen a number of moves in this area, with the end result being homes coated entirely with solar panels; more than enough to power the building.