Thatched facades for a sustainable future: CO2 neutral fire-retardants for vertical thatched surfaces

It is an established fact, that the building industry is responsible for approximately 40 % of the total CO2 outlet. This states the question; how is it possible to develop a sustainable building culture, that can eliminate the CO2 outlet in the industrialized building sector? Sustainability is governed by multiple agendas like organic materials, design for disassembly, minimizing the co2equivalents or using few or no chemicals with environmental impact. But mostly the building industry fails to handle all aspects equally. This project is a practise oriented research collaboration between stakeholders, industry and academia, which sets out to investigate, how material choices and radical tectonic solutions can be drivers for sustainable change in design, industry and legislation.
Fire safety as a part of the design solution is central when building with bio-based materials. As a point of departure the project aims to develop new standards for co2-neutral bio-based materials in façade constructions as well as generating new combinations of materials, surface treatments and construction solutions.
The focus of the project is to develop and test new sustainable solutions for thatched vertical constructions. It aims to both have an environmentally low impact, have as ‘close-to-standard’fire retardant properties and be industrial scalable. Different materials and constructions knownfrom traditional and vernacular architecture as well as experiences from cutting edge architecture in Europe, amongst others The Netherlands, are investigated. On this basis designs, constructions and materials, that prove to be most sustainable with the best fire retardant properties, forms the baseline for prototyping representable sections of a full-scale façade construction, that are to be fire-tested. It is a collaboration between The Danish Institute of Fire and Safety Technology (DBI),Tækkemand Horneby, Hæmmed Tækkefirma, Egen Vinding og Datter, Stråtagets Kontor, and TheRoyal Danish Academy. It is funded by the Environmental, Technology, Development andDemonstration Program (MUDP). The projects duration time is set to be 14 month starting April2021. During the summer and autumn of 2021, the prototypes will be developed, fire tested and evaluated.
The entry on the ICSA critical practise will consist of one or more prototypes, that have shown to be most viable or central to the conclusions of the project. Furthermore pictures, videos and/or other relevant material from the fire tests will be shown to give the viewer an insight in the forcesthat (also) forms the sustainable building culture.