A house made from hemp

Sunday, 14 August 2011

 A South African has attracted international attention with his innovate design – a house built from hemp.

Hemp is traditionally associated with rough-hewn clothes and bags, ropes and other woven items. But mostly it is known as another name for the drug cannabis or dagga. In South Africa, hemp is considered a narcotic and illegal.

But Tony Budden, a hemp activist with company Hemporium, believes that hemp has much to offer the world. He has followed closely the hemp construction industry in Europe.

He told www.inhabitat.com: “It is one thing to accept wearing cannabis, or even eating it, but living in it was really the next level and the seed was planted, so to speak.”

South African authorities do not distinguish between hemp and the euphoric THC-laden “dagga” plant, which is why Budden had to overcome various legal and official obstacles before his hemp house could see the light.

The point was to showcase hemp’s incredible potential as a building material and to try to convince government to remove obstacles for commercial development of this resilient, versatile and environmentally-friendly resource.

Budden says once they presented hemp brick and insulation samples and explained how sustainable houses could be built; they could see the interest light up in the eyes of officials.

The house was designed by two architects – Michael Orchard of New Earth Architecture and Wolf of Wolf & Wolf Architecture and adapted by Van Der Weerd into a modular building system.

Set against a scenic backdrop in Noordhoek outside Cape Town, the house sports a modern, upmarket look with attractive, natural features that appear sophisticated and extremely stylish.

The internal modular walls comprise of hemp insulation, while the external walls are made from a lime-based hempcrete, considered less energy intensive to produce and less dense than traditional cement.

Partly powered by solar energy, the floors are made from cork and all of the grey and black water is set to be recycled. Most of the cabinetry and furniture is also made of hemp.

Hemp is also said to sequester carbon, making it a great combatant against greenhouse gas emissions.