(Veje til biobaseret byggeri). Scale - farm to building. Alexandra Wittchen, Smith Innovation.
What will it take for more biogenic materials such as straw, grass and hemp to find their way into Danish homes and buildings? That's what is being explored in an ambitious project ‘Pathways to bio-based construction’ - a project where new materials, old traditions and sustainable solutions go hand in hand. The project is funded by Realdania – a modern philanthropist and change agent.
The ‘Pathways to Bio-based Construction’ project aims to integrate bio-based materials into the Danish buildings of the future. Wood, straw and clay soil are far from foreign to us; they have been part of Danish building tradition for centuries but were pushed aside with the rise of concrete in the post-war period. With new climate requirements and a focus on circularity and resource consumption, it's time to look at bio-based materials again.
Three tracks have been investigated:
1. Land use “What biogene resources are or could be made available?”
2. Value chains and production “How can new value chains be established?”
3. Construction “What biogenic materials would construction ask for?”
Many “stones have been turned” and several interesting findings are available in reports covering crops, land use, value chains and material properties. They can all be found here.
Alexandra Wittchen shared her insights from the project and stressed that two complementary, but not integrated, strategies should be followed.
- To make impact fast and at scale, we have to change the existing – Transition.
- To make impact that can reduce our footprint also in the long run, we have to create the new - Resetting.
How to do this is practice? Here Alexandra emphasized and suggested to be inspired by the impressing work done by Circulair Friesland for the last 10 years. Two decisive drivers here are the social housing organization’s determination to use biobased building materials and the Dutch governments support for new processing equipment.
