Structures of all kinds, including buildings, come together to create urban environments. For smart sustainable urbanisation to keep up
with the world's continuous growth, smart and sustainable buildings are needed in this area. Materials that can change their properties in
response to their surroundings, whether in a passive or active way, are called smart materials. These materials have the potential to make
our buildings smarter. Different kinds of smart materials may be used to build buildings. As a field, civil engineering is beginning to pay
more attention to smart materials such shape memory alloys (SMAs), piezoelectric materials, fibre optics, magneto-rheological (MR)
fluids, electro-rheological (ER) fluids, and magnetostrictive materials. This article delves into the building industry's innovative uses of
these materials. We provide the proof of concept demonstrations and give brief explanations of the physical concepts. We outline the
benefits and drawbacks of using each material in civil engineering projects and talk about how passive systems work. When it comes to
designing buildings to withstand earthquakes, SMAs are the clear winners among the smart materials now on the market. The
experimental applicability of SMAs as seismic devices is subsequently confirmed. Materials whose damping and stiffness characteristics
are modulated by changes in stress, strain, and acceleration are also shown to be effective for earthquake protection of buildings. These
smart materials seem to be increasingly appealing in the field of civil engineering, but their production and use still need more study.