Hemp
Hemp; another sustainable material changing the world of modern architecture today. Today’s blog looks deeper into the impact of the research and development of it’s functional use
Figure 1: Waltham Place, CSK architects
My research into the material began by reading the journal ‘Grown to last’ by Thomas. K Grose, which provides an understanding to the amount of construction currently underway today: “As the planet’s population increases, so does the number of buildings needed to contain it. About five billion square meters rise from the ground annually, calculates the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction—or each week the equivalent of a city the size of Paris.” An unbelievable statistic showing the extent of the impact of the building industry, which goes on to state that: (The building industry) “It’s responsible for a whopping third of energy-related CO₂ emissions, according to the United Nations Environment Programme, so the urgent need to address global warming has begun to force change. The concrete industry, for instance, has vowed to cut emissions 25 percent by 2030 and reach net-zero by 2050.”
The solution to this, perhaps could be Hemp, otherwise known as Cannabaceae to M Signh and M. M. Sardesai who show that Cannabis is an ancient ingredient to life itself. As M Singh and M.M Sardesai (2016) put: “Cannabis is one of the oldest domestic plants in the history of mankind, probably being utalized for more than 10,000 years... being used for centuries to make a variety of items such as rock, paper and clothing and sails.”
It’s greatly beneficial for the environment as is explained by M.Singh et al, “The significant advantage of hempcrete is that it is greenhouse negative, as it absorbs more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than it produces in its life cycle thereby reversing the effect of global warming.”
This amazing view of the beneficial qualities of Hempcrete is magnified by Daniel Walczak, a mechanical engineering professor at New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnoc institute who states that, “Hemp is a very strong and natural fibre.. it’s twice as efficient at sequestering carbon as trees.” — this is an outstanding fact. This is amplified in Grown to Last: Walczyk is quoted to state that “plant based rebar is at least as strong as steel, can bend, and won’t corrode—tripling the life of a concrete structure.”
Figure 2: Regional House Edeghem / BC architects.
The article continues to speak of hemp: a material that can in some cases replace concrete, has been used in France since the 1990s and is starting to take off globally as legal prohibitions on the use of industrial hemp have eased.
Indeed this is true, the prohibition of Hemp has definitely impeded development. This is epitomised in the Hempcrete book by William Stanwitz and Alex Sparrow which states, “The unfortunate side-effect of the prohibition of the drug cannabis has of course been the blanket banning of cultivation of all forms of the hemp plant, and its consequent unavailability to Western societies for its many non-drug-related uses. The cultivation of hemp in the UK was outlawed in 1928. Since the 1930s, much effort has gone into developing cultivars of the plant which contain very little THC. The success of this endeavour means that, for some decades now, an industrial hemp plant with little or no THC content has been widely available.”
Ultimately, the future of the use of Hemp as an architectural material is uncertain, but for now, the future of Hemp in an architectual context is quickly becoming a shining example which displays how we can design a renewable and enviromentally friendly climate for the future.
References
Grose, T. (2022, May 2). Grown to Last – Engineering Education ASEE Prism. Asee-Prism.org. http://www.asee-prism.org/grown-to-last/
Singh, M., & Sardesai, M. M. (2016). Cannabis sativa (Cannabaceae) in ancient clay plaster of Ellora Caves, India. Current Science, 110(5), 884–891. https://doi.org/10.18520/cs/v110/i5/884-891
