I was familiar with straw bale homes, but hadn’t heard about hempcrete. An example of sustainable, healthy green building options. Great read, sounds like the Mdewakanton Band of Dakota are really on to something – and they are already sharing the knowledge/learnings with other communities.
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>For now, it’s only a gaping hole in the ground, 100-by-100 feet, surrounded by farm machinery and bales of hemp on a sandy patch of earth on the Lower Sioux Indian Reservation in southwestern Minnesota.
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>But when construction is complete next April, the Lower Sioux — also known as part of the Mdewakanton Band of Dakota — will have a 20,000-square-foot manufacturing campus that will allow them to pioneer a green experiment, the first of its kind in the United States.
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>They will have an integrated vertical operation to grow hemp, process it into insulation called hempcrete, and then build healthy homes with it. Right now, no one in the U.S. does all three.
>
>Once the tribe makes this low-carbon material, they can begin to address a severe shortage of housing and jobs…
…
>… hempcrete as a construction material is normally the domain of rich people with means to contract a green home, not marginalized communities. That’s because the sustainable material is normally imported from Europe rather than made locally.
…
>Farther north, the Gitxsan First Nation in Canada invited Desjarlais to show them in August how to build. They’ve grown enough hemp for three prototype homes on their Sik-E-Dakh reserve 16 hours north of Vancouver and are seeking $5.5 million (Canadian) to get a similar integrated project off the ground.
This is exciting! I hope their hempcrete business flourishes.
I know about earthen homes but haven’t heard of this before. I’ll look a bit into it
3 comments
I was familiar with straw bale homes, but hadn’t heard about hempcrete. An example of sustainable, healthy green building options. Great read, sounds like the Mdewakanton Band of Dakota are really on to something – and they are already sharing the knowledge/learnings with other communities.
​
>For now, it’s only a gaping hole in the ground, 100-by-100 feet, surrounded by farm machinery and bales of hemp on a sandy patch of earth on the Lower Sioux Indian Reservation in southwestern Minnesota.
>
>But when construction is complete next April, the Lower Sioux — also known as part of the Mdewakanton Band of Dakota — will have a 20,000-square-foot manufacturing campus that will allow them to pioneer a green experiment, the first of its kind in the United States.
>
>They will have an integrated vertical operation to grow hemp, process it into insulation called hempcrete, and then build healthy homes with it. Right now, no one in the U.S. does all three.
>
>Once the tribe makes this low-carbon material, they can begin to address a severe shortage of housing and jobs…
…
>… hempcrete as a construction material is normally the domain of rich people with means to contract a green home, not marginalized communities. That’s because the sustainable material is normally imported from Europe rather than made locally.
…
>Farther north, the Gitxsan First Nation in Canada invited Desjarlais to show them in August how to build. They’ve grown enough hemp for three prototype homes on their Sik-E-Dakh reserve 16 hours north of Vancouver and are seeking $5.5 million (Canadian) to get a similar integrated project off the ground.
This is exciting! I hope their hempcrete business flourishes.
I know about earthen homes but haven’t heard of this before. I’ll look a bit into it