[Ar.Axel Ritter]

Innovative Materials and Products

An architect can be a designer, developer and manufacturer. Creative architects develop their own innovative materials and products for specific applications. They develop new applications and the associated materials and products, which they have to manufacture.

Depending on their characteristics, their structure and other properties, materials and substances can be divided as follows:

RECYCLABLE MATERIALS

These are manufactured from crushed and cleaned waste . Unless the raw material is sorted in advance to separate out the valuable fractions, the resulting products are usually of lower quality than the originally used materials.

BIODEGRADABLE MATERIALS

Materials that are decomposed and completely broken down by microorganisms living in the soil.

BIOMATERIALS

Plastics and other materials made from renewable sources.

NONVARIABLE MATERIALS

These materials are largely unaffected by physical and chemical influences, such as changes in ambient temperatures. e.g. metal alloy Invar.

FUNCTIONAL SUBSTANCES

Mono functional and multi functional substances.

SMART MATERIALS

These materials, substances and products have changeable properties and are able to reversibly change their shape or colour in response to physical and/or chemical influences, e.g. light, temperature.

They can be differentiated into non-smart materials, semi-smart materials and smart materials.

HYBRID MATERIALS

These materials are manufactured by combining at least two different components, e.g. biological with synthetic components.

FUNCTIONALLY GRADIENT MATERIALS

Composite materials with gradually merging layers. This results in a continuous change in material properties.

NANOMATERIALS
Materials made from nanometresc