​What’s Next in Sustainable Architecture [Article]

At Studio Design Group our approach embraces not only meeting a client’s needs now, but in decades to come. By exploring renewable building materials, our industry is capable of shaping a sustainable future and transforming architecture all together.

Spanish architect Monika Brümmer is a pioneering designer who champions hemp as an all-natural building material. Hemp is an efficient insulator, fire resistant, and effectively impermeable to termites. So how exactly do you build with it?

Our design team was fascinated by the answer, Hempcrete. A bio-composite made of the inner woody core of the hemp plant mixed with a lime-based binder, the lightweight insulating material weighs in at a seventh of the weight of concrete, and it floats.

While the production of cannabis (from which hemp is derived) is not yet legal in America, the beneficial crop is widely grown across the globe and just may be the next big thing in building.