18/08/2025
I got a bit feverish in 2019 about how inherently extractive, destructive and damaging it is to make architecture.
When my kids crashed, I’d spend hours online reading, researching, running down rabbit holes trying to find a construction method and material that was not just less bad, but almost good.
That fever finally led me to h**p and - if you’ve ever asked me a question about h**p construction - you’ll know that fever hasn’t really faded 😭.
Judging by the number of calls I’m fielding from great Architects across the country, that fever is spreading and I’m here for it because:
1. once you understand h**p, you can’t fathom why it isn’t used FOR EVERYTHING
2. but once you understand the complexity of mainstreaming a new / ancient material, that is plant based (i.e. we tether our material availability to remarkable farmers, who themselves are tethered to climate, rainfall, soil etc etc) you realise that this is gonna take ALL OF US.
✅ A gang of us have prepared draft Australian Standards
✅ A ripper woman is running a women’s only processing plant + needs investors
✅ Small companies are trying to raise the funds to test and certify their products
✅ Submissions are open for the Senate Inquiry into Industrial H**p
I could go on and on (no really!)
And Architects are at the start of that food chain. We can drive the demand for locally-grown, carbon-sequestering, plant-based buildings.
I run a 5 person practice that is (pro-rata if you take out making babies), 7 years old.
If WE can design and deliver the first 4 public h**p buildings in Australia, doing R+D whilst my little ones slept, convincing local Councils to pioneer plant-based buildings, prototyping with builders who had never heard of the stuff….pretty much every Architect in Australia could.
Continued in comments
