Nanotechnology is widely regarded as one of the twenty-first centurys key technologies, and its economic importance is sharply on the rise. In architecture and the construction industry it has potentials that are already usable today, especially the coating of surfaces to lend them functional characteristics such as increased tensile strength, self-cleaning capacity, fire resistance, and others. Additives based on nanomaterials make common materials lighter, more permeable, and more resistant to wear. Nanomaterials are not only extremely useful for roofs and facades; they also expand design possibilities for interior and exterior rooms and spaces. Nanoinsulating materials open up new possibilities for ecologically oriented architects.

In this book, with a foreword by nobel prize winner Harold Kroto, architects, interior designers and designers will find an introduction to the scientific background specifically tailored to their needs, a critical discussion of the advantages and limits of the technology, and above all a comprehensive presentation of sixteen characteristics and functions of nanomaterials that are specially relevant for building and design, illustrated by numerous international project examples.

About the Author

Dipl.-Ing. interior designer BDIA Sylvia Leydecker is a practicing interior designer with her own firm in Cologne, 100% Interior. She represents the BDIA (Bund Deutscher Innenarchitekten, or Union of German Interior Architects/Designers) on the Architektenkammer Nordrhein-Westfalen (Chamber of Architects of North Rhine-Westphalia), serves as an instructor for a number of Architektenkammer academies, and is a member of the Kompetenzzentrum Nanotechnologie CC-NanoChem (Competence Center for Chemical Nanotechnology, or CC-NanoChem) and the Institute of Nanotechnology, or IoN, in Scotland. Numerous lectures and journal publications on the subject of nanotechnology in architecture, interior design, and design.