Exhibition: Homegrown: Building a Post-carbon Future

How can we critically reassess our relationships with the world by engaging with our landscapes in a holistic sense?

Homegrown: Building a Post-carbon Future argues that a new approach to building is needed to answer the social and environmental crises we are facing – respecting geography, materiality, ecology, and place.

Created in collaboration with Material Cultures, Homegrown: Building a Post Carbon Future explores the relationship between materials and supply chains, and addresses the opportunity and potential of locally grown, plant-based construction materials that are cultivated across the UK. The exhibition champions bio-based materials as an alternative to many of the carbon-heavy industry standards, and will be on display in the Building Centre's Window Gallery.

As the need for sustainable building materials becomes more urgent than ever, these materials allow you to know your provenance, keep the supply chain local, sequester carbon and make a positive impact on the built environment. The challenge now is how to scale up biomaterials to make the most of their properties in a meaningful way with maximum impact.

The exhibition will feature a series of specially commissioned new films by Material Cultures exploring themes of their upcoming publication “Material Reform” (MACK, 2022); regenerative resources, supply chains, agriculture, land use, straw and timber.

In a nod to its origins as a building materials bureau 90 years ago, the Building Centre will house a ‘material library’ display of innovative materials alongside the exhibition, to showcase a wide variety of possibilities for the built future.