An essential point will be improving common construction materials and devising new ones primarily focusing on reducing enery requirements in manufacture and operation while accelerating the efficiency of the building process itself. Standardizing prefabricated parts, lightweight materials with superior thermal insulation qualities and trying out known materials in new settings will figure prominently.

The foremost challenges will be in the field of developing new materials for the skin of the building while concentrating on streamlining power conversion and solar power utilization:

• coatings for switching windows
  
• anti-reflex and anti-soiling layers
  
• façade coatings selective to various wavelength
  
• new thermal insulating materials
  
• thermal reservoirs built into structural elements
  
• materials for new energy management system in buildings, such as thermal reservoirs and heat transformers

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