Hi 👋 We are GROWN – Lab for Fast-Growing Materials, based at the Institute of Engineering Design and Materials Science at the @uniinnsbruck 🏔️
Since we’re new to this platform, let us introduce ourselves:
GROWN was founded in 2023 as a unit at Material Technology Innsbruck to expand the university’s expertise in the field of fast-growing raw materials.
Our core mission is to develop contextualized material technology solutions and product innovations for industries such as construction and mobility.
With an interdisciplinary approach, we see raw materials as part of circular bioeconomy systems. We develop our technological concepts at the intersection of agriculture and holistic value chains, rooted in the Alpine region as our habitat.
If you’re curious about what we’ve done so far, you can find a portfolio of our projects on our website.
#GROWNlab #uniinnsbruck #fastgrowingmaterials #materialtechnology #materialresearch
Throwback to #JECWorld2026 🥐 What stood out the most for us? The #BioMaterials Village, where innovation meets the power of natural fiber, like flax and hemp 🌿 The potentials for fiber reinforced composite materials never looked more beautiful!
This year we presented three exhibition pieces at JEC: The Hemp Tower, a basket weave construction using flat pultruded hemp profiles with rovings by @terre_de_lin_cooperative at @flaxlinenhemp , the Hemp Halo for @rawproject.eu at the Innovation Planet, created by @gra_knit and @citacph using our hemp pultruded profiles together with innovative CNC hemp knit, and a hemp pultrusion architectural construction model at @cgtec.carbonscout where the pultrusion magic happened in the first place! 🥳
And now? We are motivated to bring the ideas into reality, that were inspired from networking with project partners and long-time friends in the community. For sure we see the bright future of hemp together 🌞🤝
#GROWNlab #Hemp4Performance #RAWproject
CITA is presenting the Hemp Halo prototype at #JECWorld 2026 in Paris as part of the #RAW project.
Hemp Halo explores hemp as a sustainable alternative to fossil- and mineral-based architectural membranes and composite materials. The 3-meter-wide umbrella-like structure demonstrates how CNC-knitted hemp textiles and pultruded composite rods can form a lightweight architectural system made entirely from hemp-based materials.
Developed through material research, digital design, and fabrication within RAW, the project highlights the potential of European-grown hemp for circular, high-performance architectural applications.
📍 JEC World, Paris
🗓 10–12 March 2026
#CITAResearch #RAWProject #JECWorld2026 #BioMaterials #Hemp #CircularDesign #DigitalFabrication #Architecture #Innovation @kglakademi
We are in a full speed preparing for our trip to Paris, where we will be showing our 100% hemp sun shading architectural canopy at the world fair of composite materials JEC! @grown.lab is joining us to represent their work on the hemp pultruded bending profiles, while @citacph@martintamke and @ybar_bar will be there to tell about the knit and the overall canopy design. Stay tuned of you want to see the whole canopy assembled soon!
The General Assembly with the exhibition and public symposium in Stuttgart 🇩🇪 (26-28 November) is almost coming to an end.
Special thanks to @icdstuttgart - @itke_stuttgart - @exc_intcdc for hosting this consortium meeting.
Please keep an eye on our website (rawproject.eu), LinkedIn and Instagram to receive more updates about the tools and frameworks that we are developing.
A huge thanks to Bioeconomy Austria for the opportunity to present our research on the cascadic use of hemp at the Bioeconomy Austria Summit 2025 in Vienna.
It was inspiring to connect with projects and companies that are driving future-oriented, sustainable innovation.
We were excited to share insights from our current research projects: @rawproject.eu , Hemp4Performance, SPARE, and digiHemp.
Grateful for the exchange, the energy, and the shared commitment to a regenerative bioeconomy. 💚
#bioeconomyaustria #bioeconomyaustriasummit #lowprocessedhemp #hempmaterials #GROWNlab #uibk
After archiving the hemp varieties from our field trials we always like to see them in action 😁 here you can see the 3 varieties in different retting degrees - Felina, Nashinoide and Futura. Since the retting deree defines the colour of the stalk and fiber, we are very excited to dive into the research on its correlation to mechanical characteristics.
#GROWNlab #uibk #hempresearch #fastgrowingfibers
Throwback to FRD Codem 7th Congress on Natural Fibers and Polymers in Troyes, France last week. Our research group leader Valentine Troi shared the first approaches of our European cooperation projects Hemp4Performance (M-ERA.NET) and @rawproject.eu (EU Horizon EIC) at @grown.lab .
Thanks a lot for the invitation and we are looking forward to the next steps with the new connections we made on the symposium.
#GROWNlab #rawproject #frdcodem #naturalfibers #naturalfibercomposite #hempcomposites #troyes
A small fragment of our first longer RAW video introduces Valentine Troi from the @grown.lab in Innsbruck University working on hemp, flax and other fast growing fibers.
A big aspect of RAW is the departure of alternative building materials like reclaimed timber, biopolymers and hemp. These natural materials come with their challenges… but challenges also means great opportunities.
The full video can be found in a new blogpost on the RAW website (page: NEWS) about the Innsbruck workshop.
Recently we visited @manaomea in Höslwang, Germany, to run tests with our hemp and flax fibers—from raw to highly processed—comparing commercially available and lab-scale roving materials for the pultrusion process. As always, our focus at GROWNlab is on the performance of low-processed, fast-growing fibers and the effects of different retting and combing levels.
manaomea is known for turning textile waste into their signature manaomea® material for extra beautiful interior applications and furniture with their innovative impact micro-factory. We are more than happy that they worked together with us in these experimental trials for creating 98% plant-based pultrusion profiles with hemp and flax rovings. Back at GROWNlab, 3-point bending tests showed that these tests can easily keep up in performance when compared to the same fibers pultruded with a commercially available bio-based epoxy system.
With these exciting results, the next workshop with manaomea is already in the works and will include even more experimental trials – with more fiber varieties and geometry options. This research is being conducted as part of the EIC Pathfinder Horizon @rawproject.eu and will be presented by us at FRD - CODEM 7e Colloque.
#GROWNlab #manaomea #rawproject #flaxfibers #hempfibers #fastgrowingfibers
This year we started with small-scale cultivation trials as part of our research of fast-growing fibers to gather insight in how weather conditions, altitude and other environmental impacts affect the growth and performance of flax, hemp and biomass plants.
We already presented the GROWN garden house back in May on this channel, when the @rawproject.eu workshop happened there and project partners came together to talk about their favourite topic: hemp. As we met shortly after plantation time, not too many seeds have sprouted back then - but look at our beautiful hemp and flax now! We can't wait for the next steps, including harvest and material processing.
1: Local flax from "Patsch" by @leinup.austria in front of the garden house
2: Baby hemp, beginning of Kune
3: Baby flax, beginning of June
4: homemade fertilizer from nettles
5: Jasmin and Feli cleaning up the hemp field
6: hemp beginning of July
7: Good night, garden house!
#GROWNlab #MTIinnsbruck #uibk #hemp #fastgrowingfiber #flax #hempresearch #naturalfibers
🍄🟫 Find our new project "Hemp x Myz" on our website.
In this research project, we explore mycelium as a growing binder for hemp blocks, experimenting with various shapes and different stages of hemp processing—from powder to shives to stalks. Which specimen do you find the most interesting?
#GROWNlab #mycelium #biodesign #uubk #materialtechnology #myceliumblocks #myceliumarchitecture #hempblocks #fastgrowingfibers
