Adaptive Lightweight Materials and Systems for Sustainable Construction: Innovations and Future Directions

Dear Colleagues,

The construction sector is a highly material-intensive industry and a major energy consumer. To address environmental challenges and meet the requirements of the 2010/31/EU Directive on Energy Performance of Buildings and the EU’s Renovation Wave strategy, innovative approaches are needed in order to improve resource efficiency and building adaptability, as highlighted in ISO 20887:2020.

Although lightweight materials have demonstrated significant potential in reducing embodied carbon and emissions, current construction methods do not capitalise on their full range of benefits. These advantages are closely linked to two key design principles: (1) strategic layering to concentrate structural mass only where necessary and (2) enhanced adaptability of structures, making them more responsive to evolving demands while minimising resource use in both demolition and transformation processes.

Adaptive design through the sophisticated application of lightweight materials and layers can provide a viable alternative to overcome the intrinsic limitations of traditional, high-mass construction systems, where, once obsolete, the materials are rigid and implementing modifications is resource-intensive. The incorporation of advanced materials, such as high-performance textiles, polymers, and composites, into the building envelope can achieve or even surpass the functional capacity of traditional high-mass materials, significantly reducing both material consumption and environmental footprint.

Moreover, an additional level of flexibility can be attained by integrating lightweight and flexible materials that support adaptive systems—technological solutions that dynamically alter their configuration in response to external stimuli or user-directed inputs.

These ultra-lightweight and adaptive systems introduce new possibilities for developing future structures that are both energy-efficient and resource-optimised. In this sense, they mimic the adaptive, responsive characteristics found in the skins of biological organisms, offering a bio-inspired design paradigm where micro-scale material properties contribute to macro-scale system performance.

This Special Issue focuses on the sustainability of lightweight, flexible, and high-performance construction materials, addressing recent challenges and advancements in adaptable building systems. Topics include lightweight approaches for adaptability, innovative building systems, fibrous and composite materials, smart materials integration, and bio-fibres in construction, with an emphasis on design for disassembly and end-of-life strategies. We seek to compile a comprehensive collection of research that covers the following topics, among others:

• Achieving adaptability through lightweight approaches;
• Innovative lightweight building systems;
• Utilisation of fibrous systems and composites;
• Auto-reactive lightweight systems for thermal load reduction;
• Integration of smart materials in lightweight systems;
• Textile materials for construction applications;
• Design for disassembly and end-of-life strategies;
• Bio-fibres and bio-composites in construction;
• Bio-inspired resilient skins for novel adaptive constructions.

Prof. Dr. Alessandra Zanelli
Dr. Carol Monticelli
Dr. Salvatore Viscuso
Dr. Farzaneh Oghazian
Dr. Amirhossein Ahmadnia
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• adaptable building systems
• lightweight/ultra-lightweight construction
• energy efficiency
• composite/bio-composite materials
• membrane architecture
• textile-based building systems
• smart materials
• sustainable construction
• bio-inspired building systems
• life cycle thinking