Hempcrete 101: Back to the Future for Natural, Carbon-Beneficial Buildings
About this course
Ready to put your specification where your aspiration is? Take a deep dive into the rich world of carbon-beneficial materials and help lead our industry in responsible design and construction solutions. Hempcrete is a bio-composite material created from the woody core of the hemp plant combined with a lime-based binder. Trusted around the world as a robust, high-performance sustainable building system, HempLime entered the US market a decade ago and is poised to take the industry by storm. Learn the technical and performance characteristics, demystify how to specify and construct with this proven material, and join a growing community of radically responsible industry stewards.
Learning Objectives
- Summarize the history of hemp and hempcrete, the regulatory barriers in the US that are slowly easing, and describe examples from pioneers in hemp building from Europe and the first projects in New England
- Identify sources for hemp and lime, and explain methods for installation of this alternative material, the state of research internationally versus in the US, and what considerations are necessary from a code standpoint to build
- Use Hempcrete as a monolithic solid-wall construction material for building carbon-beneficial envelopes as an alternative to current assemblies used in high performance buildings that are entangled multi-layered assemblies more heavily laden with embodie
- List low-cost material solutions to reduce toxins in the building and improve the healthfulness of a building
Course outline
Module 1 • 6 assignments
Hempcrete 101: Back to the Future for Natural, Carbon-Beneficial Buildings
- Hempcrete 101: Back to the Future for Natural, Carbon-Beneficial Buildings (01:28:39 hours)
- Presentation Materials (.pdf)
- Q&A Transcript with the Presenters (.pdf)
- OPTIONAL: Take quiz for CEU credits
- OPTIONAL: Request CEUs from NESEA
- OPTIONAL: Subscribe to NESEA Communications
Authors
Tom Rossmassler
Tom is on a quest to create radically responsible architecture. He began HempStone in 2018 after earning a Sustainable MBA. Tom’s research focused on the creation of a regional industrial hemp processing facility in New England. Tom concurrently serves as CEO of Energia, a worker-owned cooperative specializing in building performance services that he started in 2009....
Alex Sparrow
Alex Sparrow is recognized globally as an expert on hempcrete construction. A director at UK Hempcrete, he co-authored The Hempcrete Book, published in 2014 and still the definitive guide to this remarkable building material. Alex speaks at events and provides training and consultancy world-wide for others wanting to use hempcrete.
Jennifer Martin
Advancing the intersection of design, construction, connection and ecology to catalyze sustainable architecture through natural building, ecological design, and creative engagement. We need to radically revision the way that we design, build, and engage before we get past the point of no return environmentally. By collaborating and cooperating, we can learn how to be in...
