A Factory2Key program
For the communities already living the ethos.
Follow the build, openly, before the first home is ready.
Built by you, or built for you. The Joey60 Hemp Edition is designed for two models: owner-build with your community, or fully built by an F2K team. Your choice.
We're building a 60m² hemp-panel dwelling — the Joey60 Hemp Edition — designed as a flat-pack panel kit that assembles on site. Not a 3D modular box shipped whole, not a conventional stick build. Engineered panels, designed for community assembly or an F2K build team. For Australian eco-communities along the eastern seaboard. The first community will be named here once they've given us permission.
Walk the journey with us →
PlaceholderImage: F2K Koala70 (earlier modular model) — used as a placeholder while the Joey60 Hemp Edition renders are prepared. The Hemp Edition is a different design and uses hemp panels in place of conventional cladding.
We hear you
If you live in or near a permaculture village, an eco-community, a co-housing project, or you've been quietly building toward one — you already know what's wrong with the conventional model. Concrete, steel, plasterboard, vinyl. Materials with massive embodied carbon, off-gassing chemistry, and supply chains that stretch around the world. Houses built to be sold, not to be lived in for fifty years by people who care about the land they sit on.
You've seen owner-builds eat years of life, alternative-build projects stall on certification, and beautiful timber homes built without anyone asking what the timber cost the forest. You've watched neighbours try to bring a tiny home onto site only to discover their council won't certify it. You've probably done some of this yourself.
So when we say we want to build with you — we mean it. Not for you. With you. With your community's site constraints, your climate zone, your slope, your bushfire rating, your members' actual needs. And with materials that don't betray the values that brought you to community life in the first place. Tell us about your community
Material
Carbon
Hemp draws CO₂ out of the atmosphere as it grows, and the carbon stays locked in the wall of the home for the life of the building. The opposite of concrete.
Provenance
We are working with an Australian materials partner growing and processing hemp domestically. The aim is a wall whose material didn't cross an ocean to get there.
Health
Hemp walls regulate humidity and don't off-gas the chemistry of conventional plasterboard. Better for your lungs, better for your land.
The Joey60 hemp edition is in active development. We are working with our materials partner and our engineering partner toward the residential certification pathway — the same standard a conventional home meets — but we'll publish the testing milestones as they happen rather than claim what hasn't yet been proven. Follow the journey timeline below to see exactly where we are.
Two ways to build
The Joey60 Hemp Edition is designed for two delivery models from the ground up. Same panel system, same certification pathway, same hemp-built home — the difference is who picks up the tools. Pick whichever fits your community.
Both models ship the same flat-pack hemp panel kit · Assembled on site, not delivered as a 3D modular box
Model 01
F2K supplies the Hemp Edition kit, the panel system, the assembly schedule and site supervision. Your community puts it together on site — designed for non-specialist trades, a long weekend with neighbours, and the supervision F2K provides.
Right for you if
Model 02
Same flat-pack hemp panel kit lands on your site. The difference is the build team — F2K supplies people end-to-end: site prep, on-site panel assembly, fit-out, handover. You move in. The community doesn't pick up the tools unless they want to.
Right for you if
Not sure yet? That's fine. Tell us on the waitlist form and we'll send you updates on both as the program progresses.
Backstory
Factory2Key brings the design. We've spent years building modular and flatpack capability in Australia, delivering homes that get out of the factory and onto site in weeks, not years. The Joey60 is our 60m² single-storey design — and we've been waiting for the right material to build it in.
Our materials partner is developing an engineered hemp panel system — intended as a genuine replacement for conventional sheet and framing timber. The work is happening in Australia. As the panels reach test milestones we'll publish the results on the journey timeline below.
Our engineering partner is leading the structural side — load testing, panel connection design, and the assembly geometry that lets a community put the home together on site without specialist trades. We'll name our partners on this page once their work is in market and they've agreed to be named publicly.
Three teams, one shared goal: a community-assembled, hemp-built 60m² dwelling — the Joey60 Hemp Edition — built openly so the people who'll live in these homes know exactly how they got here.
Principles
Designed against the lived needs of small-footprint sustainable living.
Targeting the same residential standard as any conventional home — we'll publish the testing as it happens.
One panel system, multiple house configurations.
Optimised for repeat manufacture across communities.
Build in public
From concept through engineering, prototyping and certification, to first install. We're publishing every milestone as it happens — so when the first home lands, you'll know exactly how it got there.
We're in conversation with eco-communities along Australia's eastern seaboard about being the first to host a Joey60 hemp edition. We'll name our first lighthouse community on this page once they've given us permission to do so. If your community would like to be considered, please tell us about it below.
Our engineering partner is preparing the structural work — connection geometry, load tests, and the assembly approach that lets a community build the home on site. We'll publish the test methodology and the first results here as they come in.
Our materials partner is developing the engineered hemp panel system that will form the walls, floor and roof skin of the Joey60 hemp edition. Sample work is in progress. We'll publish the first physical sample on this page when it lands.
We're translating the Joey60 footprint into a hemp panel build: a 60m² single-storey, one-bedroom layout, designed for a community context. Open kitchen/living running the length, separate bedroom and bathroom, decking on the long side. The first layouts are circulating internally — we'll share images on this page as soon as they're shareable.
Pipeline
We're in conversation with eco-communities along Australia's eastern seaboard about being the first to host a Joey60 hemp edition. We'll name each community publicly only once they've given us permission to do so. If your community isn't yet on the list — tell us about it.
Let's talk now — not after the build is ready
We don't want you to wait for us to finish building the home before we start talking. Site-level planning runs on its own clock — and we can be working through it with your community in parallel.
Send us
As the Joey60 Hemp Edition moves through development, engineering and prototyping, your community can be moving through site planning, council conversations, and member allocation in parallel. By the time the home is ready, your community is ready too.
Email us at dennis@factory2key.com.au — attach what you have, even if it's rough. We'll reply personally and start the conversation. The full community submission form opens in our next release.
Common questions
Q01
Honest answer: we'll publish firm pricing as soon as we lock it in during the engineering and certification process. Pricing depends on too many real variables to promise a number we'd have to walk back.
Working estimate today: around $2,500 to $3,500 per square metre of internal floor area, depending on accessorising, finish level, your specific requirements, plus location factors (transport, bushfire rating, slope, off-grid services). For the 60m² Joey60 Hemp Edition that's a rough envelope of $150,000 to $210,000 per dwelling. Land, site works and connections are separate.
These numbers are indicative and will be refined and published as we go. Join the waitlist below to be notified the moment firm pricing lands.
Q02
The Joey60 Hemp Edition is in active development. We are working through panel material development, engineering and load testing, prototype assembly, and the residential certification pathway. The journey timeline above shows exactly where we are.
We'll publish a delivery window for the first install once the prototype is built and tested. Join the waitlist and you'll know first.
Q03
Not yet — and we're being deliberate about not claiming otherwise. We're building the Joey60 Hemp Edition toward the residential certification pathway under the National Construction Code, the same standard a conventional home meets.
Test methodology and results will be published on the journey timeline as they happen. No certification claims will appear here until they're true.
Q04
No. The program is designed for eco-communities first because the values alignment is tightest there, but if you're aligned with the ethos and you have land or a community in mind, register your interest. We'd rather hear from you and have the conversation than not.
Q05
That's exactly why both build models exist. The owner-builder model is designed to be assembled by community members with F2K supervision — no specialist trades required. If even that isn't feasible, pick the built-for-you model and an F2K team supplies the build end-to-end.
Q06
The Hemp Edition is a flat-pack panel kit, not a 3D modular box. The kit ships flat on a truck and is assembled on site. Both build models use the same kit — the difference is who picks up the tools.
Kit contents: the hemp panel system (walls, floor, roof skin), engineered connection hardware, fasteners, an assembly schedule, and the supervision F2K provides on site. Foundations, site connections (power, water, waste) and any owner-supplied finishes are site-specific and quoted separately.
Final kit contents and panel sizes will be confirmed during prototyping and published before the first install.
Q07
No — please don't. Site-level planning runs on its own clock. Council conversations, working out where new dwellings could sit on your land, lining up which members want which homes — all of that takes months and is independent of where we are in the home build.
Send us a plan of your community (even a rough sketch), a note on what you're thinking, and we can be working through the site-level conversation in parallel with our development and testing process. By the time the home is ready, your community is ready too.
Q08
No. The waitlist is registration of interest only — no deposit, no contract, no obligation. You can unsubscribe at any time. We'll only reach out when there's a real milestone or a real decision in front of you.
Join the waitlist
Join the waitlist. We'll send you each major milestone — concept design, panel mockups, engineering tests, prototype builds, certification, the first install — as it happens. No deposit, no commitment, unsubscribe any time.
From the workshop
Real photos from the Joey60 Hemp Edition as it comes together — the workshop, the engineered hemp panels, the prototype. We add to this as the program moves through each stage. Tap any photo to view it full size.