Hair on Fire: Let’s Build with Hemp This Summer

Written By Jean Lotus
Pamela Bosch poses on the porch of the Highland Hemp Home in Bellingham, WA.

Pamela Bosch poses on the porch of the Highland Hemp Home in Bellingham, WA.

Pam Bosch Thumbnail

By Pamela Bosch

We have ambitious dreams.  We see the need and what we envision what we can do to respond.  The inner stalk of the hemp plant, after the fibers and dust are removed, chopped into workable pieces and mixed with lime forms an ideal building material.  It makes sense to grow hemp.  It can be a vital part of the non-toxic circular economy that we recognize is the way things can and must work.  But what is taking so long?

I gave a tour of my house to a couple of small groups yesterday.  I wish you could have seen the positive response.  It is such a shot of energy to witness their eyes opening to the possibilities. Feeling inspiration being planted is an invigorating feedback loop.  I am very fortunate to have had a role in the dawning awareness of the solid reality of a healthy, beautiful, affordable house.

Earlier this week, I watched numerous webinars from industry, government, trade organizations, and non-profits focused on getting carbon out of buildings.  I saw robotic modular manufacturing, sophisticated mechanical ventilation, and moisture control systems, calls for multimillion dollar investments in new synthetic materials.  Why?  I heard architects and builders say that natural building materials have problems with moisture control, fire, and insulation.  Why don’t they know that hempcrete solves those problems?

How do we connect the reality of the house that inspires and heals with the realization that solutions need not be complicated, expensive, and impractical?  (When your sales pitch then includes the perspective that the same plant can also provide nutrition, can eliminate need for antibiotics in animals, can clean toxins from soil, produce fibers stronger than wood, provide materials for carbon-based energy storage, . . . you know the expanding list, it amplifies the urgency.)  Too often, high-powered specialists with advanced degrees, advancing careers, and high-tech investments in their retirement accounts are blind to simplicity.  

Co-existing inspiration and cynicism.  What can we do?

What I want to do is to build a small house from the hurd that I have left from building my house.  I have a lot on the nearby Lummi Reservation.  Building there is not without complication, but that complexity encourages me to reflect, invite, extend, and incorporate the interests of the Indigenous communy.  My hair is in fire—our hair is on fire!  We cannot, any of us humans, afford to be afraid of disruption.  Hemp is not the answer to everything—it is an extraordinarily useful ally—but working together to restore the health of the ecosphere is what we all need to be working on.  

What will it take to make it happen?  I know that living in a hemp house is healthy and inspiring.  If more people could have this experience, I am convinced that we path to manifesting more homes would evolve.  We don’t need robotics or synthetics or space program laboratories; we need farmers, decorticators, designers, builders, hemp hurds, lime, and love.  We need support and participation.  

I get continuous inquiries from people who want to learn to build with hemp and lime. I’ve done it once, built a sound and beautiful house of hemp, and I want to keep going.  The help and support that has come my way is a small but dedicated group of Oglala Lakota people.  We are going to build a house and invite everyone to learn and do.  This summer.  We will offer workshops and instructional videos to share this knowledge far and wide.  It is our vision that many people in need of housing can be empowered to heal the trauma of homelessness while helping to heal the trauma of petrochemical combustion.  

We have found a non-profit umbrella through which we will apply for grants that support affordable and healthy housing.  We are looking to enlist video artists, architects and designers to provide open-source designs for affordable hempcrete houses.  We’d like like to attract some strong backs, willing hands, curious minds, and people who like to sing and dance while working together to extend our merging of dreams and practice.  We need to know that the Lummi community welcomes this effort.  We want to build this summer. Because there is a fire of need.  And when we know how to empower people to meet their basic needs, we unleash a multitude of their gifts, empower the healing of all of us.  If you will join us, please email Pam Bosch at psbosch@gmail.com.

Pamela Bosch is a hempcrete expert and the owner and designer of the Highland Hemp House in Bellingham, WA

Jean Lotus
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