Ricerc@Sapienza

This paper joins the debate on emerging materials and on the attention that design reserves for scientific innovations, interpreting them in terms of the trends and application scenarios being opened for design research. The two main trends in technical and scientific evolution - intelligence and bio - are considered in order to propose a new definition of Bio-smart Materials that takes into account the development of scientific research with its advances and the influence it has in industrial product scenarios.

The article provides a thorough review on advanced materials for architecture focusing on nanomaterials and on the new class of highly innovative materials, so called smart materials, illustrating their properties and their application in the building sector. The article illustrates how, thanks to the huge progress in the field of materials science, the advanced solutions available today can allow to reconcile the architectural features of the buildings with the new challenges of sustainability and energy efficiency.