Natural Building Systems

Natural Building Systems (NBS) is a UK construction technology company developing advanced, bio-based building systems that combine digital design, precision manufacturing and circular construction.

Our flagship technology, ADEPT®, is a precision-engineered, panelised kit of parts for walls, floors, roofs and partitions. Components are designed for off-site manufacture and rapid assembly, using timber, hemp-fibre insulation and NBS’s proprietary HempSil® bio-composite. The system combines the quality and resource efficiency of Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) with the flexibility required for different building types, sites and architectural designs.

ADEPT® is designed as a manufacturing platform rather than a single building product. Parametric CAD and a web-based configurator translate building designs into standard components and manufacture-ready information. Digital product passports and RFID-tagged components support traceability through manufacture, installation, maintenance, disassembly and future reuse.

Circularity is built into the physical system. Individual ADEPT® cassettes can be removed, replaced and reused, allowing buildings to be adapted during their lifetime and components to retain value beyond their first use.

NBS also develops HempSil®, a hemp-based material platform used within ADEPT® and in standalone boards and tiles for lining, plaster-carrier and acoustic applications. Our materials strategy combines renewable construction crops with building-performance requirements including thermal performance, moisture buffering and lower embodied carbon.

NBS owns the ADEPT® system and associated IP, leads technical design, certification, digital infrastructure, training and quality assurance, and is developing a distributed network of accredited designers, manufacturers, builders and suppliers. Rather than relying on a single central factory, our model enables regional manufacturers to produce ADEPT® components to common digital, technical and quality standards.

The technology has progressed beyond prototype stage, with over twenty ADEPT® buildings delivered across housing, education, commercial buildings, extensions, garden studios and cabins in the UK.

NBS is supported by sister company Material Research Limited which provides specialist materials expertise alongside testing and prototyping facilities. This gives us in-house capability to rapidly develop, test and refine bio-based materials and building systems, accelerating the journey from early-stage R&D through to commercial manufacture and certification.

We are particularly interested in meeting European manufacturers, digital manufacturing and automation partners, bio-based material suppliers, construction companies and organisations interested in regional ADEPT® manufacturing or technology collaboration.