Construction materials manual

by Manfred Hegger (Author), Volker Auch-Schwelk (Author), Matthias Fuchs (Author), Thorsten Rosenkranz (Author)

Construction materials manual explaining the fundamentals of building materials have long since been standard reading for architects and engineers.

They supply comprehensive information about materials for construction, explain their origins and production processes, outline the forms in which they are available and the potential applications, and hence provide an in–depth understanding of properties and processing options.

The publications currently available also follow the traditional layout: an overview divided into sections devoted to the groups of materials, with comprehensive information on how they affect the performance of the building.

This established technical and business–like approach has been supplemented recently by other groups of publications.

One group is the books – some of them in large format – of samples of materials which with their primarily visual means of communication would seem to represent the antithesis to the aforementioned standard works.

They present extensive ranges of materials or provide an insight into the diversity of the possibilities of individual groups of materials.

They display the available diversity as materials or in as-built contexts in Construction materials manual.

This illustrates the increasing need to place the way we experience building materials on a sensual level at the very heart of our decisions regarding materials and hence improve the tangible qualities of the built environment in visual and sensual terms.

The task of Construction materials manual is to show us the surface of the material.