My first Publication Arup_BuildingDesign2020_v2 | Page 14

Technologies
“Look at the number of people the banking industry used to have just
typing numbers in computers. They’ve all gone, because what they
were doing is a very automatable thing. The architect has now got a
computer model, with everything he wants in it, and it’s not a huge leap
for someone to say, add a button that can do the structural design.”
—Michael Willford, Arup Fellow, Advanced Technology and Research
Dynamic, capable design tools requiring
complex skillsets; smart, sustainable
materials facilitating concepts as bold as
they are efficient; construction processes
increasingly enabled by automation and
novel fabrication methods. The near future
of building design technologies is full of
opportunities and potentially transformative
innovation.
2.1 Materials
Materials science involved in building
design is responding to two sets of market
pressures. Materials are increasingly
considered as component elements of smart,
interactive, self-regulating systems, where
the ability to support embedded information
and track lifetime usage statistics are of
considerable value; simultaneously, there
is more demand than ever for materials
whose simplicity, reusability and low carbon
intensity are manifest through their entire
cycle of manufacture and use.
Left: Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
This emerging integration of high-
performance and low-impact materials is
enabling increasingly complex and highly
functional structural, mechanical and façade
solutions, where ambitious aesthetic aims
go hand in hand with smarter, safer, more
sustainable projects.
High-Performance Materials
“High-Performance” as relates to material
science is coming to be understood as a
description of a material’s ability to increase
operational performance, reduce energy
expenditure, and contribute new potential
functionalities to building design. A growing
trend is the development of materials that
couple traditional structural and aesthetic
functions with a growing range of dynamic,
responsive physical and environmental
behaviours enabled by embedded sensing
technologies.
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