The present invention relates to amorphous inorganic materials having pores of controlled size and shape with one or more spatially organized functional groups formed therein. Much like the active site residues in an enzyme, these functional groups can be positioned in a defined three dimensional relationship within the voids and with respect to each other. By varying both the positions and identities of these functional groups, diverse sets of substrate specific adsorbents and non-biologically-based catalysts can be made.