Archinect - News

A wave of new hemp designs appear on the horizon in Australia

2024-11-26T15:37:00-05:00

While big architectural gestures commonly feature glass and steel, those building with the material hope to show that hemp can be grand in its own right.

The Guardian points out Public Realm Lab’s Powerhouse Place, the recently named winner of the National Award for Sustainable Architecture at the 2024 National Architecture Awards, as an example of Australia’s embrace of hempcrete and other hemp products as alternative building materials. Hemp is gaining in popularity in the United States after being effectively outlawed until a 2018 federal reclassification paved the way for it to be added to the U.S. building code appendix in 2022.

Back down under, Public Realm Lab’s co-founder Anna Maskiell tells the outlet: "We were really sick of designing buildings that were just less bad, tinkering around the edges with solar panels and that kind of thing. We were really on this mission to try to find a material that was truly regenerative. It’s a very different way of working, but we think there’s a lot of efficiencies in it."

Snøhetta designs hemp-based lighting product inspired by 1970s ateljé Lyktan line

2024-03-13T12:02:00-04:00

Snøhetta has designed a line of lighting products for Swedish lighting manufacturer ateljé Lyktan.

The line, named Superdupertube, sees a revision of the manufacturer’s 1970s Supertube product, which was given a “contemporary makeover through extensive material research.”

Image credit: ateljé Lyktan

Image credit: Jonas Lindstrom

“When ateljé Lyktan challenged us to create a new technical office luminaire, we rediscovered their iconic Supertube from the 1970s,” said Snøhetta Partner Jenny B. Osuldsen about the project. “Our joint decision was clear — let's update and elevate the Supertube to a 2.0 version, guided by our commitment to sustainability and cradle-to-cradle thinking.”

Image credit: ateljé Lyktan

The project began as an exploration into how ateljé Lyktan’s products could be reimagined using locally sourced materials with a smaller ecological footprint. Initial experiments with pine cones and coffee grounds led to the choice of hemp fiber, which the...

BIG designs off-grid 'adventure village' Vollebak Island

2023-06-01T14:29:00-04:00

BIG has shared details about their latest collaboration with British clothing company Vollebak to design a self-sufficient, off-grid island off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada. Named after the brand, the 11-acre Vollebak Island is intended to be fully powered by carbon-neutral energy.

The island site centers around the 6,426-square-foot Earth House, a village-like series of nine interconnected buildings clustered under a man-made hill, and the 947-square-foot Wood House, a standalone garden suite structure on the island’s eastern shoreline.

View of Vollebak Island's Earth House. Rendering: MIR. Image courtesy Vollebak

Each space on the island is made from material tailored for their specific uses, including stacked seaweed, compacted earth, hemp, glass brick, and locally-sourced stone. The island will be powered through a combination of offshore wind, geothermal energy, and solar power, with the energy stored in Tesla power walls.

The Earth House. Rendering: MIR. Image courtesy Vo...

Hempcrete has been added to the U.S. building code appendix

2022-12-05T15:22:00-05:00

For many years, industrial hemp was illegal in the US due to hemp’s association with drug use, despite the fact that it does not contain more than 0.3 percent THC [...] Building residential homes with hempcrete was therefore effectively outlawed until 2018, when the Farm Bill distinguished between hemp and cannabis plants. Then, in September 2022, hemp building materials were added to the model US residential building code, paving the way for legal use in 2024.

The International Residential Code (IRC) accepted a modified appendix in September that some are hopeful could be a catalyst for further adaptation throughout the building industry. Builders for Climate Action spokesman Chris Magwood says its greatest potential lies in commercial construction, though applications within residential design do present inherent challenges owing to drying times, insulation R-Values, and other factors.

Previously on Archinect: Hemp is about to take an outsized role in the building industry's push to go green

"I don't think that hempcrete will ever play a large role in the residential market," Magwood recently explained to Treehugger. "The fact that it is a composite material that uses a lime-based binder means that it is less insulative than other options and more expensive. Somebody has to mix, form, and cure the material, whether that happens on-site or in pre-fab units or blocks. To meet basic minimum code requirements in colder climates requires at l...

Hemp is about to take an outsized role in the building industry's push to go green

2022-07-19T17:40:00-04:00

While most of these buildings are constructed out of more traditional materials like cement, brick, drywall, and plywood, forward-thinking architects and members of the construction industry have increasingly been turning to natural materials as an alternative for the future. Due to its ability to sequester carbon, hemp has landed itself at the forefront of the conversation about natural building.

Hemp’s high tensile strength, pliability, and strength-to-weight ratio are increasingly valuable in the manufacture and design of products like fiberboard and even a new concrete alternative. The recent COP26 conference in Glasgow featured the speculative 'Urban Sequoia' design from SOM that combined hempcrete with other green materials like algae and bio-bricks to create a high-rise tower capable of sequestering 1,000 tons of CO2 per year.

One industry executive says it’s going to change the way we build, and that this is only the beginning in terms of what we’ll see coming onto the marketplace in the next few decades. “We’ve made blueprints for hemp villages,” Jayeson Hendyrsan, CEO of Hempcrete Natural Building Ltd., told the AIA’s Topic A blog. “We want families to live in these carbon neutral homes for generations. While we’re a way off from that being widespread, we...

Texas A&M researchers receive $3.74M for the development of 3D-printed hempcrete buildings

2022-06-21T15:33:00-04:00

A project by researchers at Texas A&M University has received a $3.74 million grant for the development of resilient, 3D-printed building designs using a new green material called hempcrete. Its usage has the potential to lower the environmental impact of traditional construction methods and make housing more affordable and available.

The funding was made available by the U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) Harnessing Emissions into Structures Taking Inputs from the Atmosphere (HESTIA) program. Leading the project is Petro Sideris, assistant professor in the Zachry Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who will develop residential and potential commercial construction designs. His team consists of assistant professor Maria Koliou, department head and professor Zachary Grasley, and professor Anand Puppula from the department, and associate professor Manish Dixit and professor Wei Yan from the Texas A&M College of Architecture.

Hem...

France requires new public buildings to contain at least 50% wood

2020-02-10T18:56:00-05:00

The government of France is set to require that all new public buildings must be made at least 50% from wood or other sustainable materials from 2022 as it pushes for sustainable urban development. The local government in Paris had already pledged a greater use of natural materials such as wood, straw and hemp, and any buildings higher than eight storeys built for the 2024 Paris Olympics must be made entirely of timber.

As part of President Emmanuel Macron's climate action plan, a new measure announced by the country's Minister for Towns and Housing Julien Denormandie requires all new public buildings financed by the French State to contain at least 50% wood or other organic material, such as straw or hemp, by 2022.

Minister Denormandie also called for proposals to create 100 urban farms in priority neighborhoods, so called "green suburbs," as well as adding 90 new "eco-neighborhoods" to the already existing stock.

The "Sustainable City" plan is intended to showcase France's low-carbon ambitions in the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Paris.

Finnish University receives grant to explore industrial applications for hemp

2016-04-20T17:32:00-04:00

Turku University of Applied Sciences has received a grant of 70,417 euros to see if hemp could be used more in construction projects. The research will involve investigating the soundproofing and fireproof properties of the substance. Researchers will also look at how hemp decomposes and to see how it could be used as fertilizer - in order to determine how eco-friendly hemp's waste materials are.

The article is careful to note that hemp has far less THC than marijuana and is therefore not a psychoactive substance (obviously) – but the news still feels topical.

Hemp has been used for centuries for ropes, oils and textiles. But marijuana criminalization efforts in the 20th centuries seriously hurt hemp's brand (among other things). Now that marijuana is beginning to become destigmatized, there's been a renewed interest in hemp and its many potential uses.

"Hemp-based concrete is already marketed with names like Hempcrete and Canosmose, and is made up of a mixture of hemp fibres, lime and other materials," the authors note. "The mixture is not as strong as conventional concrete however and is used in conjunction with extra framing support."

Here's some other 4/20-related articles from the archives:

House of hemp? Pushing cannabis as a construction material

2012-03-26T15:04:00-04:00

Hemp Technologies said it wants to use hemp-based materials to construct a 500-square-foot structure at the ruins of Knapp's Castle near Santa Barbara. The principal material for the project is Hempcrete, made of the woody internal stem of the Cannabis sativa plant, which is processed into chips and mixed with a lime-based binder. That concoction is then sprayed on, poured into slabs or formed into blocks like concrete to create the shell of a building.