super natural materials Natural materials have superior sustainability and health benefits over artificial materials, and in many cases they're also cost competitive.

As architects specialising in sustainable contemporary design, we specify natural materials such as timber, zinc, copper, wool insulation and plant-based paints in our projects as standard practice.

With this new blog series, our aim is to inform both homeowners planning design work and construction professionals on the unique benefits of using natural materials. We believe the sustainability and health benefits deserve more attention. And in particular we have found many people wrongly assume that natural materials will necessarily be expensive or more difficult to work with. In fact, the market has moved on significantly, and high-quality natural material products are now readily available at competitive prices - especially if full lifecycle costs are considered.

Over the next six months or so, we will be publishing one post per month in this series, with each focusing on a different material.

Each post will include an overview of the strengths of that material, along with several diverse examples of buildings that successfully utilise it.

This post is both an introduction to the series, and will also act as an index page where all the posts in the series will be available as links. We'll add to the following list as we publish new posts.

Whether you're a homeowner planning renovation or building works, a developer, a designer or a supplier, we want you to send us your ideas and questions. We have an idea of which materials to cover, but we welcome your suggestions on what to cover in this series. You can send us your suggestions either on Twitter or by email. To join the conversation, tweet with the #SuperNaturalMaterials hashtag and tag @KoruArchitects. If you're not on Twitter, you can always contact us by emailing sma@koruarchitects.co.uk

Let's experience the power of natural materials.