We love bamboo because of its strength yet lightweight and elegant appearance.
Bamboo is the pioneer plant of the tropics. Where ever the rainforest goes down, it is the next plant to pop up. It seals the canopy and boosts forest regrowth.
But unlike trees bamboo is a grass. You can cut a culm and a new one grows right back out of the root stock.
But why build with bamboo?
Bamboo is a perfect substitute for timber in construction.
Bamboo is a giant grass that grows back quickly and ensures a sustainable supply of raw material that is almost ready to build.
The mature culms just have to be well selected, cleaned, treated and dried to serve as beautiful, reliable and strong building material.
Bamboo is either straight or curved. So designing with the inherent nature of bamboo poles allows innovative design concepts, which are expressed in a variety of building types.
From simple post and beam structures to complex multiple story buildings.
Elegant arches and grid shells to prefabricated trusses for bridges or even modular space frames.
Bamboo restores watersheds and degraded land. A true pioneering plant that is able to nurture.
Bamboo poles come out of the ground as a ready to build raw material. It needs four years to lignify and mineralize properly to reach its extraordinary fiber strength, similar to steel.
After a lead time of 5 to 10 years it is ready to be yielded.
Bamboo can be harvested in a four year rotation cycle that allows for a 25% harvesting per year.
This sustainable harvesting cycle is applicable to existing bamboo forest but it can also be an environmentally friendly basis for investments in plantations.
A bamboo pole can either be upgraded in complex buildings or downgraded into splits, sawdust or micro-fibers for industrial products.
