Newly designed housing materials

Whether it is for their thermal performance, their aesthetic qualities or in terms of life comfort, the new solutions sought in the building industry have aimed at reconsidering in an innovative way the use of materials known since long ago, and also new materials with interesting properties.
Patrick Perré, a materials engineer at LGPM, process and materials engineering laboratory, explains the advantages of using wood for construction. Wood is a mechanically rigid and sturdy material and with high thermal insulation properties.
Makan Rafatdjou, urban architect, describes the environmental and aesthetic criteria which prevailed in the choice of building materials (glass and brick) on the site of the docks at Saint-Ouen.
Jean-Marie Lépinay, architect, talks about the use of traditional materials in a house on Ile aux Moines and explains how their use has transformed them into real modern materials.
Jean-François Caron, researcher in materials mechanics at the Navier laboratory, presents a pultrusioned, innovative material composed of glass fibres and resin, which offers great architectural versatility because of its formability which facilitates to create buildings of any shape or dimension (like the cathedral of Créteil in its initial and transient form).