Ceramic blocks that make electricity from urine? Cement made from desalination sludge? CO2-absorbing curtains of algae? These are just a few of the many new materials on the horizon, some created through natural processes, some even carrying out such processes, once installed.
Blaine Brownell, “Five Futuristic Materials That Could Reshape Architecture and Design,” Metropolis, 8 Mar 2019
“Algae Used To Make New Biopolymer,” Advanced Textiles Source, 13 April 2020
Thomas Barrett, “Glastonbury Festival Turns Urine Into Electricity,” Environment Journal, 28 June 2019
“Just Add Salt: a More Sustainable Way to Make Cement,” NYU|Abu Dhabi Research
Drew Higgins, “Cementing the Future: Making Cement Clean Up Its Act,” Sierra, 23 May 2020
Jane Margolies, “Concrete, a Centuries-Old Material, Gets a New Recipe,” New York Times, 11 August 2020
Cover illustration is a lithograph by Adolf Giltsch after a sketch by Ernst Haeckel, showing algae in the genus Pediastrum, as published by Verlag des Bibliographischen Instituts, Leipzig and Vienna, 1904. Detail above.
