It was hempcrete I wanted to investigate, this time not laid as pre-dried blocks but poured into solid walls, themselves constituting a kind of hemp-shiv-and-lime-binder superblock in the custom shape and size for assembling this particular house. If you’ve read my past post, you’ll know I had already seen a build featuring hempcrete blocks, whose advantages include the predictability and convenience of pre-dried hempcrete. Now I wanted to see some of those smooth cast-in-place walls, the better to imagine my own healthy house goals.

It was hempcrete I had come to investigate, but I wound up investigating the man in charge, too. You see, when a house mid-build invites quiet contemplation like this one, I listen for evidence of a kindred spirit. Robert Mazurek of Nativus Biobudownictwo is on his sixth start-to-finish residential project so far, having turned to the challenges and wonders of artisanal ecoconstruction after a long career in industrial-scale electrical engineering. My chat with Robert was illuminating, but the real spiritual reassembly happened for me after the client and Robert both left, entrusting the property to me and my camera, leaving me with instructions for closing the wire enclosure when I go.

(I’m still writing this, more to come. But maybe not much more, I’ve said what matters and the pictures speak for themselves.)