Aspects of the disclosure are directed to late materialization of attributes in response to queries to a database implementing a database cache. Queried data is materialized in temporary memory before the data is projected as part of generating a result to the query. Instead of materializing all of the attributes referenced in a query before executing the query, a database management system materializes attributes as “late” as possible—when the operation needing the attributes is executed. The operation needing the attributes can be performed sooner, as opposed to materializing all referenced attributes are materialized before executing the query.