Matter and surface
Bamboo
housing school pavilion bridge
It is a giant grass with a hollow, jointed stem used whole or in strips as structure, wall or floor.
What it solves
It is light, flexible and strong, so it performs well in earthquakes. It grows well in the humid tropics near where it is built.
Today
Use mature culms treated with boron and keep them dry with a plinth, drip edges and wide eaves. Design connections that do not split the culm.
Common mistake
Leaving bamboo in contact with the ground or exposed to rain, where it rots even if treated.
Tomorrow
There is already an international standard for structural design in bamboo. Community plantations and workshops can provide local material and jobs while their roots help hold slopes and riverbanks.
Fact Boron protects bamboo from insects but not from rot, and it washes out with water, so the design must keep it dry.
Where it comes from
- 1China and India Asia, cited in the year 960
Suspension bridges with bamboo cables, one of them perhaps from the 3rd century BC. - 2Indigenous peoples of the Americas Tropical America, pre-Columbian
Walls of woven cane and mud that Colombia and Peru now regulate with earthquake-resistant codes. - 3National Bamboo Project Costa Rica, 1986 to 2000
About 5,400 low-cost homes, several of which withstood the 1991 Limón earthquake.
Masters
- Simón Vélez ZERI Pavilion, Hanover, Germany, 2000
He used guadua as a permanent structure thanks to his own connection systems and took it to a world exposition. His work showed that bamboo can be major architecture.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Matter and surface
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.