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By Sara Hart

Continuing Education Use the following learning objectives to focus your study while reading this month’s ARCHITECTURAL RECORD / AIA Continuing Education article. Learning Objective: After reading this article, you will be able to: 1. Describe the new industry that has developed around building materials. 2. Explain how different companies collect information and evaluate materials. 3. Discuss new trends regarding building materials.

More products have been invented in the past 15 years than in the entire prior history of architecture. We’re only beginning to tap the potential of those materials,” says Stephen Kieran, FAIA, principal of Philadelphia-based KieranTimberlake Architects. There’s very little data to confirm real numbers, but Sweets (sweets.construction.com) currently tracks 61,000 building products, and Greenspec (buildinggreen.com) lists over 1,800 sustainable materials. And yet there are apparently so many new and unusual materials flooding the marketplace that the phenomenon has spawned a cottage industry of boutique libraries and subscriber services to evaluate and promote them.

The hunters and gatherers

Materials ConneXion, started by George Beylerian in 1997 in New York, is the gold standard for collecting, evaluating, and dispensing information about new materials and manufacturing processes for a variety of industries, from architecture to toy manufacturing. Its on-site library in New York displays many items from its collection of more than 1,400 new materials samples. Its online database gives members access to a reservoir of marketing services, strategic alliances, and research, and it has recently established on-site libraries in Milan and Cologne.

And yet there are newcomers to the innovative materials market, which seems to confirm that the expanding universe of products and innovations is big enough for multiple archivists. Zach Kaplan and Keith Schacht launched Inventables in 2002. The company publishes DesignAid, a smart subscription service that is packed with objects and information. Every three months, subscribers receive a three-part issue—20 samples displayed in three cases, a hard-copy design guide, and access to its online database.

 

Seattle-based NBBJ did many facade iterations in order to design a buildable rain screen out of a new material. Image: Courtesy NBBJ Architects

The Chicago-based entrepreneurs started Inventables by interviewing design professionals and compiling information about how they find and use product samples. Kaplan says they discovered that many design professionals either don’t have time for research, or they do it cyclically depending on specific project needs. “We found a lot of unfinished databases and materials in cardboard boxes in a lot of offices,” he explains.