Sacyr's Blog

The COVID-19 crisis has forced us to rethink the spaces we inhabit and sustainability seems to be the key ingredient for the future of housing. As the ultimate expression of this trend, passive houses use recyclable materials and optimise energy expenditure without sacrificing comfort, design or safety.

The smart fabric revolution has a new player: fungi. Their ability to detect a variety of stimuli—chemical, mechanical and electrical—makes them potentially key components for monitoring the environment in a new generation of wearable devices. And these properties have already proven effective in the construction industry.

3D printing has revolutionised construction by allowing materials and infrastructure to be designed in a fraction of the time, while improving durability and reducing costs. Now, this new trend in prefabrication has continued to gain steam, and is even positioning itself as a winning solution for the post-COVID era, from folding houses to dwellings that can be erected in 24 hours.

Considered the most widely used artificial product in the world, concrete is also one of the materials whose manufacturing process has the greatest environmental impact. The risk of its intensive use, favored by urban concentration, tries to curb with solutions that seek to reduce the carbon footprint to zero by 2050.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced us all to reflect on the way of life we lead and how we influence our environment, an exercise that also extends to the construction sector. Engineers, architects and interior designers are working to design new spaces that minimise infections, and they are experimenting with new materials, structures and fixtures.