MATERIALS
Cold makes iron brittle. Two Oxford–Berkeley alloys stay tough at -253 °C
A Nature paper shows two Nb-Ti alloys with no brittle transition down to 20 K. Liberty ships, Tipper, and what S355J2 means under SIA 263.010.
Aerogels: The Frozen Smoke That Gives a Zurich Wall Its Square Metres Back
Aerogel insulates better than still air. How nano-pores stop heat, where Swiss facades use it, and a short Python check for the floor area it gives back.
Wood laid like rebar: Stuttgart's flat timber slab carries 20 tonnes at 36 cm
ICD/ITKE Stuttgart load-tested a two-way timber-concrete flat slab on columns: 36 cm deep, grain computed per segment. What it means for Swiss offices.
Timber Shell Structures: How a Few Centimetres of Curved Wood Learn to Span a Hall
How timber shells carry load in-plane like Mannheim's lath net and BUGA's 376 cassettes — form-finding, faceting, buckling, and building for disassembly.
Piezoelectric Materials: How a Building Learns to Feel Its Own Load
A PAZ foundation essay on piezoelectricity — from the Curies' 1880 discovery to why d33 makes it a superb structural sensor and a poor power harvester.
The Metal That Un-Remembers Damage: Shape Memory Materials, Explained
How Nitinol and shape memory alloys separate damage from deformation — the physics of self-centering seismic braces, from Buehler's 1965 patent to Assisi.
Computational Nanomechanics: Why a Material's Strength Is Grown, Not Looked Up
Why a material's strength is an emergent, atom-scale behaviour — and how architects can interrogate nano-reinforced datasheets instead of trusting them.
Carbon fibre leaves the wing: how aerospace composites learn to span and brace
How aerospace CFRP and robotic fibre placement are reshaping structural spanning and bracing — the weight win, the brittle failure mode, and the recovery loop.
Mass timber, structurally: how CLT turned wood into a load path you can stack
How cross-laminated timber turned engineered wood into a two-way structural plate that carries mid-rise buildings - plus the supply-chain risk nobody draws.
Graphene leaves the lab bench and lands in the concrete mixer — mind the supply graph
Graphene is shipping as a real concrete and coating additive in 2026. What it does, why dispersion is the failure mode, and the supply-chain dependency to draw first.
