Roberto Pennacchio

The Use of Hemp in Building Components for the Development of a Modular House in a Rural Area of Cauca—Colombia

Nowadays, people are looking for sustainable materials for construction industries due to many social, economic and environmental problems related to usage of non-renewable materials. The Colombian government and the main guerrilla group (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—FARC) has kept the development of rural areas as one of the principal task in their agenda. This work has been carried out to explore and analyze the different ways in which industrial hemp can be used in rural construction. The main focus is to develop a modular house prototype in the rural area of Toribio Cauca, by using industrial hemp as the main material. This will be used as a strategy for sustainable development of rural communities in the post-conflict period in Colombia.

Applications of Building Insulation Products Based on Natural Wool and Hemp Fibers

FITNESs, Fibre Tessili Naturali per l’Edilizia Sostenibile (Natural Textile Fibers for Sustainable Building), is a research project concerning an experimental hemp and sheep wool insulation panel. The new panel has two main innovative features: unlike the already existing hemp and wool insulation mats, it is a semi-rigid product and has low environmental impact, as shown by the Life Cycle Assessment. FITNESs panels are particularly suitable for eco-building sector, as they are 100% natural, recyclable and made with by-products from local production chains (Piemonte Region). The paper presents the production process of the panel from wool and hemp fibers and some experimental applications for sustainable architecture.

Smart Street Furniture: Innovation in the Concept Design Process

The prospective of replace the traditional street furniture with smart ones, in which digital technologies are integrated, is fascinating many cities all over the world. Many cities are today in a dichotomous situation: on the one hand, some “smart” street furniture are installed with less success than expected, on the other hand, in many public spaces the “traditional” street furniture are still not sufficient or not integrated, with problems of effective usability, or they are in worrying degraded conditions. The research group of Department of Architecture and Design (Politecnico di Torino) participates to a demonstrative project called “Smart square meter, looking the city meter by meter” where a partnership of companies intends to test smart street furniture in the city of Turin and Milan. The paper describes the role assumed by the research group in the demonstrative project and the contributions in terms of service design, integration in the built environment, analysis of citizens and public administration’s needs.