In general, strong materials also tend to be stiff but rarely tough. The other way around, tough materials are hardly particularly strong. [1] When it comes to materials that are simultaneously strong, stiff, and tough, nature provides outstanding examples, especially with respect to its limited availability of constituents, e.g., the unavailability of elemental metals. Examples that have seen a lot of attention in the last few years are tooth enamel, sponge spicules, and nacre, mother-of-pearl. These materials consist of a high content of parallel or concentrically aligned hard and stiff mineral phase that is surrounded by thin layers of bio-polymers like polysaccharides or proteins. [2][3][4][5][6][7][8] Mechanically, those layers of biopolymers both act as an adhesive to provide structural integrity and provide weak interfaces that allow for failure mechanisms like debonding, crack deflection, and pullout. [2,3,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] The latter in turn consume large amounts of energy upon fracture and the right balance between strong adhesion for strength and stiffness on one hand and weak adhesion for energy dissipation during fracture on the other is one of the key features natural and synthetic materials possess to be simultaneously strong, stiff, and tough. [16][17][18] Analyzing such natural materials with respect to models for layered composite materials like those provided by Voigt, [19] Reuss, [20] Padawer and Beecher, [21] Gao et al., [22] or Begley et al., [23] one reaches the conclusion that for stiffest and strongest results, mineral and polymer need to be arranged strictly parallel to each other and to any applied load. This way, the mineral phase limits deformation and takes most of the applied load, thus defining stiffness and strength of a composite. [18,24] Regarding load bearing [*] Prof.