Building material in the context of Construction

A building or edifice is an enclosed structure with a roof, walls and often windows, usually standing permanently in one place, such as a house or factory. Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and functions, and have been adapted throughout history for numerous factors, from building materials available, to weather conditions, land prices, ground conditions, specific uses, prestige, and aesthetic reasons. To better understand the concept, see Nonbuilding structure for contrast.

Buildings serve several societal needs – occupancy, primarily as shelter from weather, security, living space, privacy, to store belongings, and to comfortably live and work. A building as a shelter represents a physical separation of the human habitat (a place of comfort and safety) from the outside (a place that may be harsh and harmful at times).

Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "render" commonly refers to external applications. The term stucco refers to plasterwork that is worked in some way to produce relief decoration, rather than flat surfaces.

The most common types of plaster mainly contain either gypsum, lime, or cement, but all work in a similar way. The plaster is manufactured as a dry powder and is mixed with water to form a stiff but workable paste immediately before it is applied to the surface. The reaction with water liberates heat through crystallization and the hydrated plaster then hardens.

Copper is a chemical element; it has symbol Cu (from Latin cuprum) and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orange color. Copper is used as a conductor of heat and electricity, as a building material, and as a constituent of various metal alloys, such as sterling silver used in jewelry, cupronickel used to make marine hardware and coins, and constantan used in strain gauges and thermocouples for temperature measurement.

Copper is one of the few native metals, meaning metals that occur naturally in a directly usable, unalloyed metallic form. This led to very early human use in several regions, from c. 8000 BC. Thousands of years later, it was the first metal to be smelted from sulfide ores, c. 5000 BC; the first metal to be cast into a shape in a mold, c. 4000 BC; and the first metal to be purposely alloyed with another metal, tin, to create bronze, c. 3500 BC.

Papier-mâché (UK: /ˌpæpieɪ ˈmæʃeɪ/ PAP-ee-ay MASH-ay, US: /ˌpeɪpər məˈʃeɪ/ PAY-pər mə-SHAY, French: [papje mɑʃe] – the French term "mâché" here means "crushed and ground") is a versatile craft technique with roots in ancient China, in which waste paper is shredded and mixed with water and a binder to produce a pulp ideal for modelling or moulding, which dries to a hard surface and allows the creation of light, strong and inexpensive objects of any shape, even very complicated ones. There are various recipes, including those using cardboard and some mineral elements such as chalk or clay (carton-pierre, a building material). Papier-mâché reinforced with textiles or boiled cardboard (carton bouilli) can be used for durable, sturdy objects. There is even carton-cuir (cardboard and leather) and also a "laminating process", a method in which strips of paper are glued together in layers. Binding agents include glue, starch or wallpaper paste. "Carton-paille" or strawboard was already described in a book in 1881. Pasteboard is made of whole sheets of paper glued together, or layers of paper pulp pressed together. Millboard is a type of strong pasteboard that contains old rope and other coarse materials in addition to paper.

This composite material can be used in a variety of traditional and ceremonial activities, as well as in arts and crafts, for example to make many different inexpensive items such as Christmas decorations (including nativity figures), toys or masks, or models for educational purposes, or even pieces of furniture, and is ideal for large-scale production; Carton-pierre can be used to make decorative architectural elements, sculptures and statues, or theatre or film sets; papier-mâché has also been used to make household objects, which can become valuable if artistically painted (as many boxes and snuffboxes were in the past) or lacquered, sometimes with inlays of mother-of-pearl, for example. Large papier-mâché pieces, such as statues or carnival floats, require a wooden (or bamboo, etc.) frame. Making papier-mâché is also a popular pastime, especially with children.

A radiant barrier is a type of building material that reflects thermal radiation and reduces heat transfer. Because thermal energy is also transferred by conduction and convection, in addition to radiation, radiant barriers are often supplemented with thermal insulation that slows down heat transfer by conduction or convection.

A radiant barrier reflects heat radiation (radiant heat), preventing transfer from one side of the barrier to another due to a reflective, low emittance surface. In building applications, this surface is typically a very thin, mirror-like aluminum foil. The foil may be coated for resistance to the elements or for abrasion resistance. The radiant barrier may be one or two sided. One sided radiant barrier may be attached to insulating materials, such as polyisocyanurate, rigid foam, bubble insulation, or oriented strand board (OSB). Reflective tape can be adhered to strips of radiant barrier to make it a contiguous vapor barrier or, alternatively, radiant barrier can be perforated for vapor transmittance.

A writing material, also called a writing medium, is a surface that can be written on with suitable instruments, or used for symbolic or representational drawings. Building materials on which writings or drawings are produced are not included. The gross characterization of writing materials is by the material constituting the writing surface (for example, paper) and the number, size, usage, and storage configuration of multiple surfaces (for example, paper sheets) into a single object.

A brick is a type of building material used to build walls, pavements, and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term brick denotes a unit primarily composed of clay, but it is now also used informally to denote building units made of other materials or other chemically cured construction blocks.

Bricks can be joined using mortar, adhesives or by interlocking. Bricks are usually produced at brickworks in numerous classes, types, materials, and sizes which vary with region, and are produced in bulk quantities.

• A ″ natural material a substance that comes from plants, animals, or the earth, and has not been made by humans.. Minerals and the metals that can be extracted from them (without further modification) are also considered to belong into this category. Natural materials are used as building materials and clothing. Types include:

• Biotic materials
  • Wood (rattan, bamboo, bark, etc.)
• Plant fiber (coir, ramie, sisal, cotton, flax, hemp, jute, kapok, kenaf, moss, linen, abacá, etc.)
• Animal fiber (wool, silk, alpaca, camel, angora, cashmere, mohair, etc.)
• Inorganic material
  • Stone (flint, granite, limestone, obsidian, sandstone, sand, gems, glass, etc.)
  • Native metal (copper, iron, gold, silver, etc.)
  • Composites (clay, plasticine, etc.)
• Other natural materials.
  • Soil

Building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) are photovoltaic materials that are used to replace conventional building materials in parts of the building envelope such as the roof, skylights, or façades. They are increasingly being incorporated into the construction of new buildings as a principal or ancillary source of electrical power, although existing buildings may be retrofitted with similar technology. The advantage of integrated photovoltaics over more common non-integrated systems is that the initial cost can be offset by reducing the amount spent on building materials and labor that would normally be used to construct the part of the building that the BIPV modules replace. In addition, BIPV allows for more widespread solar adoption when the building's aesthetics matter and traditional rack-mounted solar panels would disrupt the intended look of the building.

The term building-applied photovoltaics (BAPV) is sometimes used to refer to photovoltaics that are retrofit – integrated into the building after construction is complete. Most building-integrated installations are actually BAPV. Some manufacturers and builders differentiate new construction BIPV from BAPV.

Corrugated galvanised iron (CGI) or steel, colloquially corrugated iron (near universal), wriggly tin (taken from UK military slang), pailing (in Caribbean English), corrugated sheet metal (in North America), zinc (in Cyprus and Nigeria) or custom orb / corro sheet (Australia), is a building material composed of sheets of hot-dip galvanised mild steel, cold-rolled to produce a linear ridged pattern in them. Although it is still popularly called "iron" in the UK, the material used is actually steel (which is iron alloyed with carbon for strength, commonly 0.3% carbon), and only the surviving vintage sheets may actually be made up of 100% iron. The corrugations increase the bending strength of the sheet in the direction perpendicular to the corrugations, but not parallel to them, because the steel must be stretched to bend perpendicular to the corrugations. Normally each sheet is manufactured longer in its strong direction.

CGI is lightweight and easily transported. It was and still is widely used especially in rural and military buildings such as sheds and water tanks. Its unique properties were used in the development of countries such as Australia from the 1840s, and it is still helping developing countries today.

A cobble (also sometimes called a cobblestone) is a clast of rock defined on the Udden–Wentworth scale as having a particle size of 64–256 millimeters (2.5–10.1 in), larger than a pebble and smaller than a boulder. Other scales define a cobble's size differently. A rock made predominantly of cobbles is termed a conglomerate. Cobblestone is a building material based on cobbles.

Ethnobotany is an interdisciplinary field at the interface of natural and social sciences that studies the relationships between humans and plants. It focuses on traditional knowledge of how plants are used, managed, and perceived in human societies. Ethnobotany integrates knowledge from botany, anthropology, ecology, and chemistry to study plant-related customs across cultures. Researchers in this field document and analyze how different societies use local flora for various purposes, including medicine, food, religious use, intoxicants, building materials, fuels and clothing. Richard Evans Schultes, often referred to as the "father of ethnobotany", provided an early definition of the discipline:

Since Schultes' time, ethnobotany has evolved from primarily documenting traditional plant knowledge to applying this information in modern contexts, particularly in pharmaceutical development. The field now addresses complex issues such as intellectual property rights and equitable benefit-sharing arrangements arising from the use of traditional knowledge.

Travertine (/ˈtrævərtiːn/ TRAV-ər-teen) is a form of fresh water limestone deposited around mineral springs, especially hot springs. It often has a fibrous or concentric appearance and exists in white, tan, cream-colored, and rusty varieties. It is formed by a process of rapid precipitation of calcium carbonate, often at the mouth of a hot spring or in a limestone cave. In the latter, it can form stalactites, stalagmites, and other speleothems.

Travertine is frequently used in Italy and elsewhere as a building material. Similar, but softer and extremely porous deposits formed from ambient-temperature water are known as tufa.

Cobblestone is a natural building material based on cobble-sized stones, and is used for pavement roads, streets, and buildings. Setts, also called Belgian blocks, are often referred to as "cobbles", although a sett is distinct from a cobblestone by being quarried and shaped into a regular form, while cobblestones are naturally occurring rounded forms less uniform in size.

It has been used across various cultures for millennia, particularly in Europe, and became especially prominent during the medieval and early modern periods. Today, cobblestone streets are often associated with historic preservation and are used in many cities to maintain the historical character of certain neighborhoods.

Lime mortar or torching is a masonry mortar composed of lime and an aggregate such as sand, mixed with water. It is one of the oldest known types of mortar, used in ancient Rome and Greece, when it largely replaced the clay and gypsum mortars common to ancient Egyptian construction.

With the introduction of Portland cement during the 19th century, the use of lime mortar in new constructions gradually declined. This was largely due to the ease of use of Portland cement, its quick setting, and high compressive strength. However, the soft and porous properties of lime mortar provide certain advantages when working with softer building materials such as natural stone and terracotta. For this reason, while Portland cement continues to be commonly used in new brick and concrete construction, its use is not recommended in the repair and restoration of brick and stone-built structures originally built using lime mortar.

Calcium oxide (formula: CaO), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline, crystalline solid at room temperature. The broadly used term lime connotes calcium-containing inorganic compounds, in which carbonates, oxides, and hydroxides of calcium, silicon, magnesium, aluminium, and iron predominate. By contrast, quicklime specifically applies to the single compound calcium oxide. Calcium oxide that survives processing without reacting in building products, such as cement, is called free lime.

Quicklime is relatively inexpensive. Both it and the chemical derivative calcium hydroxide (of which quicklime is the base anhydride) are important commodity chemicals.

Adobe (/əˈdoʊbi/ ə-DOH-bee; Spanish: [aˈðoβe]; via Spanish, from Arabic الطّوب (at-tūb)) is a building material made from loam and organic materials. Adobe is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is used to refer to any kind of earthen construction, or various architectural styles like Pueblo Revival or Territorial Revival. Most adobe buildings are similar in appearance to cob and rammed earth buildings. Adobe is among the earliest building materials, and is used throughout the world.

Adobe architecture has been dated to before 5,100 BP.

A compressed earth block (CEB), also known as a pressed earth block or a compressed soil block, is a building material made primarily from an appropriate mix of fairly dry inorganic subsoil, non-expansive clay, sand, and aggregate. Forming compressed earth blocks requires dampening, mechanically pressing at high pressure, and then drying the resulting material. If the blocks are stabilized with a chemical binder such as Portland cement they are called compressed stabilized earth block (CSEB) or stabilized earth block (SEB). Typically, around 3,000 psi (21 MPa) of pressure is applied in compression, and the original material volume is reduced by about half.

Creating CEBs differs from rammed earth in that the latter uses a larger formwork into which earth is poured and manually tamped down, creating larger forms such as a whole wall or more at one time, rather than building blocks. CEBs differ from mud bricks in that the latter are not compressed, but solidify through chemical changes that take place as they air dry. The compression strength of properly made CEB usually exceeds that of typical mud brick. Building standards have been developed for CEB.