Developments in additive manufacturing (AM) in engineering cause the adoption of a design approach with functionally graded printed cellular solids to become more feasible. Functionally graded materials, which are materials with a spatially varying composition, are omnipresent in nature. Such materials offer high material efficiency – thus resource efficiency. In contrast to natural materials and biological tissues, industrially fabricated constructions, such as concrete pillars, are typically volumetrically homogenous. While the use and application of homogenous materials allow for ease of production, many qualities - such as improvements in strength, weight, material usage, and functionality - could be obtained by the development and application of functionally graded materials at the product and architectural scales. To assess the potential of these cellular solids for the building industry, research has been constrained to the integration of thermal and structural performance. Furthermore, the design variables in the assessment have been constrained to porosity, shape, material properties and a linear gradient type. As input material properties, AM businesses have been consulted and conservative properties have been used. The material assessment shows that there is still room for improvement and these values might improve as a future prospect. Assessment shows that for printed polymers there are applications in insulating objects with low structural demands, such as structural façade elements. This is due to their general flexible behaviour, but impressive low conductive properties. For metals, the field of application is limited with this design approach, because of their high conductive properties. Instead, this property could be used advantageously in the design of a heat exchanger that also serves as structural object. Ceramics show potential to be used as load bearing components such as walls or pillars that also are optimized for either thermal buffering or thermal mass by adapting the porosity and/or heterogeneity corresponding to the thermal comfort requirement of the adjacent space.