Hemp Architecture

In recent decades, architecture has been rediscovering Hemp as a building material, first in Europe and in countries such as South Africa, Israel, and the United States, then increasingly everywhere. Get to know some of the most remarkable projects and moments of this resurgence.

Restoration of the Maison d'Adam in Angers, France, 1990s
Hempcrete was developed in France by the self-taught builder Charles Rassetti, while he was restoring the Maison d'Adam in Angers, in Nogent-Sur-Seine, a medieval house with a wooden structure, which ended up having its thermal comfort improved. From there, the material began to be used in restorations of historic buildings in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Photo Henri-Alain SEGALEN/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Clay Fields, Suffolk, United Kingdom, 2008
This village of 26 affordable houses in England, designed by architect Riches Hawley Mikhail, was the first work to use sprayed hempcrete as a thermal and acoustic insulator.

Photos by Tim Crocker

Push House, Asheville, United States, 2010
The Push House was built with 30-centimeter-thick hempcrete walls by the design studio of the same name, in North Carolina. The goal was to demonstrate the concept and prove that the material is safe, at a time when it was still illegal to produce Hemp in most of the United States.

Hemp House, Cape Town, South Africa and The Triangle, Swindon, United Kingdom, 2011
2011 was a landmark year for Hemp construction, when two pioneering works were built. South African architect Erwin van der Weerd created the Hemp House in the Noordhoek neighborhood of Cape Town as a model of a sustainable house, both in materials and energy use. In Swindon, England, the Howells firm created a village of 42 houses with low energy consumption, all made of hempcrete.

Photo by Hemporium

Geraardsbergens House, Belgium and Culburra Hemp House, Culburra Beach, Australia, 2015
In 2015, two notable projects were a country house in Belgium, by Martens Van Caimere, and a beach house in Australia, by Shelter Building Design.

Photos: Nathan Devine

Artists' Village, Ein Hod, Israel, 2017
A work by the Israeli studio Tav Group, the artists' village of the rural community of Ein Hod, south of Haifa, was the first house to use hemp in its construction in Israel. Very airy and illuminated, the house makes maximum use of natural materials — wood and stone, along with Hemp.

Fort V Reception Center, Edegem, Belgium, 2017
In 2017, the BC Architects & Studies & Materials studio from Brussels promoted a Hemp construction workshop in an old defensive structure south of Antwerp known as Fort V, giving new meaning to a public place and bringing it closer to nature.

Photos by Thomas Noceto

House LO, Velehrad, Czech Republic, 2018
A simple country house designed for its entire life cycle by Ateliér Lina Bellovičová. It was built to be first a house for a couple with two children, then a retreat for the family, then a home for two elderly people, and then to return to nature.

BoysPlayNice Photos

Flat House, Cambridgeshire, 2019

Film director Steve Barron bought a rural property, became a farmer, and called on architects from the British studio Practice Architecture to build this beautiful house from the material he grows himself. The project had a great media impact and initiated a research center on new materials, the Material Cultures.

Oscar Proctor

Case di Luce, Bisceglie, Italy, 2024
This five-story building with 42 apartments, located in the Italian province of Puglia, expanded what was possible to imagine doing with Hemp. The building has net zero energy consumption: it produces all the energy it uses.

84 Harrington Street Building, Cape Town, 2024
Built by the Wolf + Wolf studio, a pioneer in the use of Hemp, this twelve-story building in South Africa is the tallest building made of hemp in the world. It houses a hotel with 50 rooms, a coworking space, a farm-to-table restaurant, and a Hemporium store.