A new industry campaign reframes technical membranes as a distinct architectural material category, arguing that building performance can come from regulating heat, light, air, and sound rather than relying on added mass. The article is company-collaborative content, so its performance claims merit independent editorial scrutiny.
About this story
ArchDaily’s October 8, 2026, collaboration article discusses Serge Ferrari Architecture’s “7TH MATERIAL” campaign, which names technical membranes as a category of materials that can regulate light, solar gain, airflow, and sound. It presents examples including The Camp campus in Aix-en-Provence, Hazza Bin Zayed Stadium in Al Ain, and a Lyon office simulation. For The Camp, the article describes an approximately 7,000-square-meter membrane canopy over an 11,000-square-meter campus, designed by Corinne Vezzoni & Associés; it says the canopy filters daylight, supports airflow and rainwater collection, and, subject to project-specific fire-safety approval, avoids mechanical ventilation and smoke extraction in that volume. The article also reports a modeled 39.59% reduction in combined heating and cooling demand for one Lyon office configuration. Serge Ferrari’s own campaign pages describe the category and its intended functions. These are company- and configuration-specific claims, not independently established general performance conclusions. The unveiling included Nic Goldsmith, founding director of TYLin’s Lightweight Structures Group and author of Mass to Membrane, and the article also quotes computational designer Nick Tyrer.
Status and timeline
Serge Ferrari’s public unveiling took place September 24, 2026. The company is promoting the Seventh Material as a category of technical membranes for building envelopes and interiors; the source article describes an assessment methodology under development, not a completed independent standard.
Design highlights
Performance through material behavior rather than mass; membranes as multifunctional interfaces regulating heat, light, air, and sound; integrating material choice with geometry, climate, fabrication, and lifecycle analysis early in design. The source acknowledges there is not yet a single standardized metric combining the proposed performance variables.
