Emerging Technologies and Housing Prototypes

Emerging Technologies and Housing Prototypes is an extensive guide to new materials and technologies being used and developed for the building industry. Featuring prototypes already in the first stages of manufacture alongside more conceptual speculative designs, Emerging Technologies is a mesmerising glimpse into the future of architecture.

Accessibly written and comprehensively illustrated, Emerging Technologies is the result of an investigation carried out by the world-renowned Berlage Institute of Architecture in Rotterdam. The book comprises profiles of materials and technologies that are at the very forefront of innovation in the building sector. Details of their properties and potential applications are included as are dazzling photographs and computer generated images showing the materials featured, as well as examples of their in situ use.

The book includes a plethora of entries from manufacturers at the cutting edge of their industries, including General Electric Plastics, Dupont Displays, Panelite, Pittsburgh Corning and 3M. In addition, contact details of the manufacturers are provided.

Emerging Technologies and Housing Prototypes has important implications for students, architects, engineers and scientists as the transformation of the built environment becomes increasingly complex and ambitious. The materials studied in this book search for the possibility of improved environmental sustainability and efficiency, crucial issues in the twenty-first century as energy resources dwindle and traditional materials seem less and less adequate to meet modern needs.

A compelling exploration of how the future is imagined in the present, Emerging Technologies also features pertinent essays by Rossana Atena, Salvador Pérez Arroyo and Igor Kebel, specialists in their fields, that explore the sustainability and feasability of these new materials.