The year is 2522. A team of archaeologists has uncovered an ancient structure. Believed to have been built c. 500 years ago in the early 2000s, a period when civilisation was only just beginning to remediate its negative impact on the environment and human life. Facing east and with a low cell-like void suggests this may be an original “Hush” – a small structure made of hempcrete, thought to be a quiet solo escape from technology and the clamour of the urban soundscape. To crouch inside this space is to experience a hush in the city.
While environmental materials are the norm in the 26th century, this structure is an early example of a neo-vernacular using hempcrete as the principal material. Hempcrete is made from the woody stems of industrial hemp, combined with lime and water.
McLoughlin’s environmental and speculative practice is concerned with the protection and sustainability of the natural environment.
Click the 'Website' button below to link to the 'Hush' Audio Tour.
'Hush'; Early morning sunlight enters the chamber
Hush
'Hush'; View from 3rd floor, NCAD
Meitheal Day 2; Installing the frame and filling the void with straw bales
Meitheal Day 2; Building the hempcrete walls
Hempcrete walls complete
Meitheal Day 3; Raising the roof
'Site Artefact; Nature colonising the manmade'
'Simultaneous building on-site within a metre of the Hush; nest of Common Wasp, Vespula Vulgaris'
'Site Artefact: calcified beaded necklace'