Sustainable building materials and products: the latest trends

Architects and designers face numerous challenges when creating sustainable buildings or structures. Factors such as form, orientation, and lighting calculations can significantly impact the project's efficiency and sustainability. However, the most crucial decision is choosing the appropriate building materials.

Defining a sustainable building material involves several aspects. It should be highly durable, locally sourced, a repurposed material, or a completely new innovation with revolutionary properties. In essence, sustainability encompasses all of these characteristics, which is essential to remember as we examine the trends shaping these remarkable products.

The market for sustainable building materials and products has experienced substantial growth as the construction industry strives to be more knowledgeable, considerate, and environmentally friendly. Some experts even consider "green construction" as a market in itself, predicting it to reach a global worth of US$774 billion by 2030 (not limited to Australia).

Among the various aspects contributing to sustainable construction, green building materials and products are particularly innovative, intriguing, and thought-provoking. It's an exciting prospect to anticipate where the next groundbreaking innovation will emerge in the years to come. In the following lines, three of them are presented and analyzed.

Bamboo is a material well-regarded for its sustainable properties and has been used in global construction for over 7,000 years. It is abundant, versatile, lightweight, strong and grows rapidly. Bamboo finds applications in various areas, such as flooring, soft furnishings, and acoustic paneling. With its increasing popularity and production, bamboo will continue to be prevalent in sustainable buildings for many years.

Another sustainable wood product worth mentioning is cork. Similar to bamboo, cork grows rapidly, and its bark can be harvested without logging, making it highly durable. It maintains its shape despite being flexible, possesses waterproof qualities, and excels in shock absorption and thermal insulation. These attributes make it an excellent choice for floor tiles.

On the opposite end of the sustainable material spectrum, we have smart glass, also known as dynamic glass. This innovative building essential is poised to become dominant in our windows of the future. Smart glass can adjust its transparency or light transmission properties to regulate the amount of natural light entering a building. This active contribution to energy efficiency reduces the need for cooling and helps maintain a stable temperature. While the technology was previously inaccessible due to high costs, recent advancements indicate that smart glass will soon be widely available.