Home Grown: Morpeth Grown Hemp-crete Housing
Shawn Lithgow
The scheme is intended to help with worsening soil conditions due to intensive farming in Morpeth. It does this by using hemp as a cover crop which is rotationally grown in fields to improve soil health and fixate nitrogen. It sits within a network of filter strips which filter pollutant run-off from fields and are used to transport harvested hemp to the building. The building processes the hemp and turns it into hemp-crete panels to be used in new build housing developments in Morpeth. It features a large perforated stone tower where the panels are dried for 5 weeks.
(Studio 01; This Enduring Landscape: Debatable Edges)