While big architectural gestures commonly feature glass and steel, those building with the material hope to show that hemp can be grand in its own right.The Guardian points out Public Realm Labs Powerhouse Place, the recently named winner of the National Award for Sustainable Architecture at the 2024 National Architecture Awards, as an example of Australias embrace of hempcrete and other hemp products as alternative building materials. Hemp is gaining in popularity in the United States after being effectively outlawed until a 2018 federal reclassification paved the way for it to be added to the U.S. building code appendix in 2022.Back down under, Public Realm Labs co-founder Anna Maskiell tells the outlet: "We were really sick of designing buildings that were just less bad, tinkering around the edges with solar panels and that kind of thing. We were really on this mission to try to find a material that was truly regenerative. Its a very different way of working, but we think theres a lot of efficiencies in it."