Construction Informer

When people talk about sustainable buildings the focus is primarily on the kinds of materials used and the techniques used in the construction process. But there are degrees of sustainability. Some buildings using certain materials in certain climates are more sustainable than the same materials used in other climates. How do you get to the point where a building is totally sustainable?

Each aspect of the building, the site, and the process of building it would need to be addressed. Plus, you would need to address the long-term effects of the building within the environment, and that would include things like its energy use over its lifetime.

When it comes to materials used in the construction of the building then it would seem that you would only consider the materials already available on the site. Nothing would be trucked in. That would in effect, based upon today’s technologies, render vast areas of land as unfit for building. While that might ultimately address all environmental concerns it would most likely limit the options available to satisfy the human need for shelter.

But what if you could grow the necessary building materials right on the site? There is some research underway that begins to address such an approach.

At the University of Bath in the UK a group of building materials suppliers, architects, university researchers, and others, are experimenting with a material that is largely made of hemp. Apparently when you mix hemp with a lime-based adhesive you get an impressive, light-weight building material. Since the hemp stores carbon as it grows, the lime is a low carbon footprint, and the materials together have very efficient insulating properties, the researchers expect the end products to be “better than zero carbon footprint.” Plus, you can grow enough hemp on one-and-three-quarters acres to build a typical three-bedroom house.

For those who would like a starting point for more information visit CICM.