The design institute has just done research on this topic, to speak of new and cutting-edge building materials in the world, it is necessary to talk about PMMA, a term often heard recently in the construction industry, polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) is a widely used thermoplastic. It is light and high strength, with excellent light transmission, excellent chemical stability and weather resistance, good heat insulation, easy to recycle. Commonly used in the building for lighting components, transparent roof, wall panels, primary and secondary schools and kindergarten building glass substitutes.
German architect Gunter Benes and structural engineer Frye Otto led the design of the Munich 20 Olympic Games stadium, even in today’s view is a very amazing creative work, It is an excellent representative of the use of PMMA in large areas of construction. After 30 years of practice, it has proved the excellent weatherability of PM MA.
Another is the PC board scientific name polycarbonate board. Polycarbonate sheet is a kind of engineering plastic sheet made of polycarbonate by extrusion molding method. It has good light transmission and superior impact resistance, commonly known as sunshine plate, PC endurance plate.
And the use of our country’s water cube materials ETFE film is fluoropolymer. Fluoroplastics are an important category of plastics, usually people know fluoroplastics from polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) began. ETFE is by far the strongest fluoroplastics, while maintaining the good thermal, chemical and electrical insulation properties of PTFE, its radiation resistance, mechanical properties and processing properties have been greatly improved. ETFE membranes have been recognised by many architects since the 1990s, when architect Nicholas Greenshaw innovatively used them in the Eden Project in the UK.
Cutting edge building materials fall into these three main categories:
Combined materials
The production system of these materials can provide designers with new information to some extent, especially the properties of the materials used.
These materials are generally from the properties of the building materials themselves or related crafts to start with, For example, UCL Bartlett currently has two groups of RC5 & 6 that make up the Material Architecture Lab, which studies the conditions that influence digital design from material properties and craftsmanship processes.
The Augmented Skin project of AD group a few years ago started from the casting method (in essence, the replacement of one material with another through a mold), He studied flexible molds to obtain lighter and more flexible building structures. He chose a combination of plastic membrane materials as the skin and common structural materials (wood, steel, etc.) as the linear skeleton.
In this way, we can obtain the advantages of the two materials, the constantly changing direction of the skeleton, and the ductility and encapsulation of membrane materials to meet more architectural modeling possibilities.
New synthetic materials
This material is based on the original traditional building elements to develop other building material properties.
For example, it is known that concrete as a building material appears in the sense of massiness, strong sense of volume, smooth and rough natural texture, which is the reason we choose concrete.
But we want to change a point of view to ensure the texture of concrete under the premise of more light? For example, in the exhibition of CHINA HOUSE VISION – Explorer, the design of “Haier x Extraordinary Architecture” – “concrete vessel” (Concert Vessel) experimental residence.
The building is made of glass fiber reinforced concrete (GRC) 3 mm thick, made from recycled construction waste. In a common sense, it is light transmitting concrete. At night, the interior lighting can be seen through the facade material, making the facade appear mottled and shady, adding a different taste to the concrete.
The design not only develops new materials, but also extends the construction cycle by using waste materials. In addition, many biodegradable materials are being developed to reduce the impact of construction waste on the ecological environment.
Micro-materials
There are two aspects to the microbiological or microscopic study of the impact of objects on architecture:
On the one hand, microbes influence the formation of materials – the development of new biological materials, The introduction of advanced biological technology into architectural design, through the natural logic to influence design, to achieve deep level design – the effective combination of life and ecological environment, so as to achieve the harmonious coexistence of human and natural environment.
For example, RMIT University’s School of Engineering published a study to try to make building materials from new forms of waste disposal and recycling, It is the first aspect of the performance, through the interference of bacterial colonies to make cigarette s into one of the raw materials that can form clay brick.
The second aspect is biologically-based research, which studies the cycles of microbial ecosystems or the properties that are studied at the microscopic level.