Architects, Material Scientists & Contractors - Material Data Needs

I think construction has a materials problem. Not because we don’t have enough materials. We have thousands of them. The problem is that we still make many material decisions almost in isolation. We ask: Does it meet the specification? How much does it cost? Can we buy it now? But rarely: What is it compatible with? How will it age? Can it be repaired locally? Can one layer be replaced without destroying five others? What happens to it when the building changes in 15 or 30 years? Can it become an input for another building instead of waste? The more I work on LERIM, the more I think that the next step is not simply inventing another “better material”. It is creating a better information layer between materials, buildings and their lifecycle. A building should know what it is made of. And a design system should understand not only whether two materials can be assembled today, but what that decision means years later — for maintenance, replacement, reuse, logistics and cost. That is the subject of the second article in my Substack series on where construction could go next. I’d especially like to hear from architects, manufacturers, material scientists and contractors: What information about a material do you wish you had before specifying it? And what do we still discover too late — only after construction begins? Full article on Substack → https://lnkd.in/dfMXsPsS If these questions are interesting to you, subscribe. I’m using this series to think through the different pieces of a more connected construction system — one problem at a time.