Design fundamentals - The Hempcrete Topic: Designing and Building with Hemp-lime - page 496

products are being developed all the time. Likewise, many of the materials and
products that work with and complement hempcrete are also relatively new, for ex-
ample recycled glass foam blocks, natural wood-fibre boards and hemp-fibre insula-
tion; and this constant innovation, while very welcome in many respects, contributes
to the problem of standardization.
Another contributing factor is that until quite recently the hempcrete market in the UK
was effectively monopolized by one company supplying both hemp shiv and binder. The
amount of hemp building which happened was not sufficient to warrant a more compet-
itive marketplace or widely agreed standards for construction. This has resulted in testing
of, and detailing for, proprietary products rather than hempcrete as a generic material. In
recent years the market has begun to open up slightly, with more choices of binder and
sources of shiv coming on to the market. It is hoped that this situation will create an at-
mosphere in which wider industry cooperation and agreement on standard detailing will
emerge.
A cross-industry acceptance for hempcrete as a material would allow standard details and
construction practices to be developed for the most common types of buildings, and for
materials used alongside hempcrete. This could only be beneficial to the industry as a
whole since it would simplify the building control process, and an accepted construction
methodology would allow those building with hempcrete for the first time to use the mater-
ial with greater ease. It would remove a lot of the stumbling blocks which currently deter
architects and builders from working with the material, and which sometimes complicate
the process when they do use it.
More hempcrete buildings can only be beneficial to the hempcrete industry as a whole and
to the environment. It is our hope that this topic and the indicative details contained within
will add to the impetus for the hempcrete industry (including contractors, designers, mater-
ial manufacturers and bodies responsible for sustainable construction) to initiate the pro-
cess of writing publicly available standards for hempcrete construction.
The two chapters in this part of the topic aim to explain, to the building designer, the work-
ing characteristics of hempcrete: how it behaves during and after construction and how
this may affect the design. Our hope is that designers will then be able to make informed
judgements when detailing their buildings. Chapter 22 also demonstrates, with the aid of
technical drawings, some in-use technical details in buildings from the UK and Europe.