Solid Carbon wins Innovative Project Award for Habitat for Humanity Incorporating OurCarbon®

Image Credit: Solid Carbon

This year’s National Ready Mix Concrete Association (NRMCA) Innovative Project Award was given to Solid Carbon for their use of OurCarbon® as Biolock Admixture within an impactful housing project for Habitat for Humanity at Gig Harbor, Washington.

The project incorporates the biosolids based biochar within a building system known as Insulated Concrete Forms, or ICF’s. This affordable construction method is easy to place, and can be lower in carbon footprint than equivalent walls fully cast.

In coverage of the project published in Architect Magazine, the project architect highlights the importance of OurCarbon® storing carbon within the walls of this house and allowing it to hit such a low carbon footprint overall.

The 1,500-square-foot home is Habitat for Humanity’s first zero-carbon home. “The home is built with concrete that uses a sand replacement made of a biosolids waste product called biochar,” explains project architect Cameron Walker of Tacoma, Wash.-based Ferguson Architecture.

“This form of biochar sequesters carbon without diminishing concrete durability and energy performance,” Walker says. “It transforms a waste product nobody wants into an effective building material that locks up carbon for thousands of years. It’s a practical, emerging environmental solution.”

Such a ‘zero carbon marvel,’ as Architect magazine puts it, can now gain the acknowledgement and accolade of such a formative and influential group like the NRMCA.