The Stalk project is financed by the Ministry of the Environment, companies and the Foundation for Quality of Construction Products. The project focuses on straw element structures and the goal is to build high-rise NBB buildings in order to achieve greater positive climate effects.
The project consists of four work packages:
- In WP1, the moisture and thermal performance of the straw element in the northern climate is investigated and the best performing interior and exterior surface solutions are determined.
- In WP2, in cooperation with the Southeastern Finland University of Applied Sciences, a building board is being developed from lake reed and bio-based binders such as starch. This board could be used on the outer surface of the straw element structure like a porous wind protection board and at the same time promote the removal of nutrients from eutrophic water systems.
- In WP3, we are looking for the best composition for the clay plaster that protects the straw element from fire by mixing the clay with small amount of biochar. In addition to the Ecosafe project, the fire protection properties of clay plaster have been studied in several European projects, but the bottleneck of high-rise building construction has nevertheless become the fire safety of structures containing a lot of biomaterials in Finnish fire regulations. The fire safety of the structure in question is demonstrated in the Stalk project with a fire simulation according to the P0 procedure.
- In WP4, a training package will be prepared from the materials of a sustainable high-rise building that is planned as part of the project and the NatureCO2 project. The training package contains information on the technical characteristics of the building system, building technology, prices, climate effects and the health effects of indoor air. The presentation material is used in various training events in the field of construction and the material is freely available online.
The Biosivu project is a project of Southeastern Finland University of Applied Sciences (XAMK), which is financed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The project is looking for a use for oil hemp straws and XAMK is trying to turn it into a building board similar to lake reed board. Tampere University is researching the material properties of hemp board and developing a fire protection product consisting of chipped hemp straw and a clay that would be a dry version of clay plastering.
Professor Juha Vinha ( juha.vinha@tuni.fi ) is responsible for the projects at Tampere University, and Mikael Westermarck ( mikael.westermarck@tuni.fi ) is the project manager.
The Stalk project has received support from the Ministry of the Environment’s Low Carbon Built Environment program, which is funded by the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). The Biosivu project has received funding from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.
