Building material in the context of "Plaster"

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).

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.