Humans, as a species, are defined by their innate drive to create and make. For millennia, we have developed extraordinary material capabilities, from simple tools, clothing, and shelter to complex technologies that harness electricity and reach the Moon. The progression of civilization is, to a large extent, defined by the "stuff" we create and master, from the Stone Age and Copper Age to the present day. This relentless creativity and dreaming is the core engine of societal progress.

However, behind this proud creative capacity lies a growing and severe challenge: we are adept at making, but poor at repairing and maintaining. Similar to the ubiquitous potholes in our cities or cracks in bridges, the "stuff" we create—be it roads, buildings, electronics, or clothes—ages, deteriorates, and is ultimately discarded at an alarming rate. We seem to have forgotten the crucial element of "maintenance," trapping society in a cycle of "make-break-remake" and discarding waste into the environment at an unprecedented scale. This disregard for materials is precisely the next major task and adventure that we, as humans, must confront at this stage of our material civilization's development.

Imagine a future city that doesn't constantly fall apart, requiring immense effort to repair. Instead, picture a city that heals itself after damage from storms, where potholes don't form and bridges don't crack. This vision is not far-fetched and hinges on a new class of materials called “animate matter.” This material, inspired by nature, possesses the ability to self-repair, self-heal, actuate, and sense its environment.

To understand how animate matter works, we must delve into the core of material science and observe how nature constructs everything. Nature's approach to building materials is a hierarchical, inward-out, multiscale process. From macroscopic entities like trees down to microscopic cellular machinery and DNA, each scale is nested within larger structures. Life itself is the connection between these scales, driven by information flows that check, detect, and repair damage. When you get a scratch on your body, it automatically initiates a repair process—this is nature's manifestation of "self-repaired materials."

Human engineering, while achieving brilliant feats across various scales—designing nanostructures, manipulating atoms, creating transistors—faces its greatest deficit in its inability to effectively connect these scales and imbue materials with the capacity for self-repair. Bridging this gap between engineering and nature is the most formidable challenge facing material science and engineering today.

Currently, scientists have made significant progress in the practical applications of animate matter, painting a tangible picture of the future. For instance, self-repairing roads. Research reveals that large potholes in roads often begin as tiny microscopic cracks. By embedding nanoparticles into the road material that can be activated by magnetic fields, these particles can move and repair microcracks as they appear, preventing them from developing into widespread road damage.

Another exciting example is self-healing concrete. This technology is already commercially available. Its ingenuity lies in embedding dormant microorganisms within the concrete. When cracks form and expose them to humid air, these microorganisms are activated. They consume pre-placed starch as food and excrete calcite, a material that fills the cracks, restoring the concrete to approximately 90% of its original strength.

Furthermore, self-disassembling plastics offer a novel approach to environmental pollution. Addressing the issue where plastic wraps used to protect seedlings for tree reforestation become a pollution problem once the tree matures, researchers are developing plastics that protect a tree for years but then biodegrade when the tree is fully grown. This is achieved by embedding enzymes within the plastic that catalyze polymer disassembly. These enzymes are encased in a random heteropolymer, allowing them to withstand the high temperatures of plastic manufacturing and remain stable in the environment until activated for degradation.

While technological breakthroughs are encouraging, the most significant hurdle to the widespread adoption of animate matter may lie in economics. Our current consumerist model—make, use, break, discard—is unsustainable. However, when the true costs of pollution and global warming are factored in, the economic viability of animate matter will gradually become apparent. Developing new economic models that prioritize the "care" for materials over their "consumption" will be key to creating a truly sustainable, non-polluting future.

Looking twenty years into the future, when we visit London again, animate matter will be integrated into our urban infrastructure, our phones, and our laptops. This transformation will not feel strange; instead, it will evoke an experience akin to being in a forest—a world where everything is self-caring, self-repairing, and self-growing, a continuously self-sustaining environment. This vision of an "animate world" is the ultimate promise offered by animate matter.

We can even push these animate materials further to achieve "self-construction." Perhaps one day, roads will build themselves, and cities will self-plan and reshape. In such a future, humanity's role will fundamentally shift. We will no longer need to spend vast amounts of energy on laborious repairs or constantly discard old items to make new ones. Our work will become more like that of "gardeners"—tending, guiding, and making subtle adjustments when necessary. The city will largely look after itself, freeing us to enjoy life, perhaps occasionally pruning a road that has "drifted off into the wilderness," or providing artistic aesthetic feedback on a bedroom that has "rebuilt itself." This is the future we are moving towards: a civilization that truly understands how to "care for" its material foundations.