Bamboo For Flooring

When something works, it works.

And bamboo as a sturdy and lightweight material is proving to be the answer to sustainable and easy-to-produce temporary shelters.  Here’s yet another example.

A group of architectural students from the University of Queensland in Australia have designed a temporary shelter for use during a natural disaster, with bamboo serving as its frame.  From the article:

Civil engineering student and team co-ordinator Ryan Cantrill said bamboo was chosen because it was efficient in carrying loads, light weight, used less energy than steel, concrete or timber and had excellent strength and stiffness properties.

“Initially our ideas were focussed on designing a fancy bamboo structure. However, we started researching this material in terms of where it grows naturally, and started to realise that it is native to regions of recent natural disasters,” Mr Cantrill said.

I think this last point is particularly important - that bamboo is not only sustainable as well as tough, but it’s also highly accessible in the areas that are hit by natural disasters.

Read the full article and check out more of the details, including an image of the design, winning third place in the contest sponsored by the International Association for Shells and Spatial Structures (IASS).

Cheers!

Rob.

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In many parts of the world, there is a fine line between having a home and being left to fend for oneself without one when a natural disaster occurs.  In times such as these, what is needed is a sturdy, easily managed, and lightweight material that can be used for temporary shelter.  As luck would have it, in the same areas of the world where this kind of scenario is likely, bamboo is plentiful.

Recently, I found this article about bamboo earthquake shelters made renewable materials which use  bamboo for frames.  Incredibly, the idea for the design of these shelters was inspired by the ancient art of origami.  Take a look at the images included in the article.  Not only are they practical, but there’s something artful about them too.

Image courtesy of Inhabitat

The design created by Ming Tang for these shelters was honored with a notable mention recently at the Re-Vision competition in San Francisco for renewable and innovative architectural designs in urban areas.

Cheers!

Rob.

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Here’s an article from the Vicksburg post about a bamboo specialist and exterior designer and landscaping professional Rob Mendrop.  They’ve affectionately referred to him as ‘Bamboo Man’, which I suppose means he fights crime of the exterior design sort by frequently using the benefits of bamboo to his advantage.  Mendrop’s discovery of bamboo was something of a career-transforming event, even though he’d been involved in horticulture from his school days.

His extensive use of bamboo is linked to how unlikely bamboo is to be degenerated by termites, having used wood for outdoor elements like trellises, only to have them fall apart a year later due to insect infestation.  Bamboo is the more durable choice for this purpose since bamboo isn’t as delectable to insects and eaten only as a last resort.

Mendrops uses bamboo frequently for a number of uses.  From the article:

With bamboo, though, you can makes trellises, fences, furniture, picture frames, curtain rods, walking sticks, wind chimes, candlesticks, stilts — even charcoal. You can weave it, crisscross it, paint, stain, or varnish it, (says Mendrops) “and a fence with pointed bamboo is one nobody can climb over.”

Rob operates Dreamscape Designs based in Edwards, Mississippi.

Cheers!
Rob.

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A funny old thing is bamboo.

We happen make flooring out of it, and do a pretty good job of it too if we do say so ourselves.  And there are specialists out there who put it to other uses too, some of which I’ve outlined on this very blog.

But, I was amused to find that bamboo has a sexy side!

Consider bamboo underwear, people.  Now on first impressions, perhaps this sounds like an uncomfortable prospect.  Perhaps you’ve got visions of stiff-panted eco-warriors staggering around in carbonized horizontal planks in the shape of your standard pair of undies.  But no.

Here’s an article about bamboo underwear that explains that you actually get a pretty comfy experience, and all with a material which is as sustainable as it is versatile.

I wonder if they have it in tiger strand woven bamboo?

RrrrARRGH!

Cheers,

Rob.

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We just had Thanksgiving this past weekend up here in Canada.  This is typical of us as a nation, as a people; to be the first to give thanks, and the first to apologize for the inconvenience of not being easily reached by our American cousins while doing so (‘Sorry, eh.  We’re, like, busy eating turkey right now.  Call us later, eh’).  Still, much turkey was had, lots of mashed potatoes and stuffing, with the legal minimum of vegetables to allow us to think it’s a balanced meal. Oh, and pumpkin pie.

Gobble, gobble.

Being a family occasion, everyone chipped in with the preparations.  I was in charge of cutting the vegetables, the unsung heroes of the table.  In this case it was carrots and broccoli, the most unassuming vegetables we could come up with.  There was talk of serving Brussels sprouts, as they are traditional.  Yet, sense prevailed, and there just weren’t any – which was nice.

The point is, as I was cutting the vegetables, I noticed that my Mother-in-Law had a fancy cutting board, kind of stylish and a sort of blonde color which matches the décor in the kitchen – as if it wouldn’t!

Anyway, it took me a while to figure out it was made from bamboo!  The first thing that I noticed was that distinct bamboo ‘knuckle’ pattern.  And then, I noticed that although the surface is scratched, because it is a cutting board after all, it’s still in pretty good shape.

I tried to press the knife into it to see if it would leave a mark – no luck. From our perspective here at BuildDirect, it really illustrates how well this reflects on bamboo floors as a durable surface.  Every material scratches of course, but this was a reminder of how rugged bamboo is for use in nearly any context.

AS far as use as cutting boards, it struck me that bamboo is the perfect material for this kind of thing – smooth, very hard, and still looking as though it belongs in a modern kitchen.

I found this site, Totally Bamboo, which sells a lot of bamboo products for the kitchen, including cutting boards, and even countertop surfaces and backsplashes.

Cheers!
Rob.

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The many uses for bamboo are well documented, and of course I’ve spent some time outlining a few uses for bamboo beyond flooring which I personally find to be fascinating - and hopefully you found them to be fascinating too.  I suppose I started out with this approach in order to frame (no pun intended here!) just how strong this stuff is, in addition to how plentiful and fast-growing it is.

But, I’m also interested in how it seems to spark creativity in innovative people, how it gets talented brains thinking in directions that maybe they wouldn’t otherwise have considered.  If one is looking for a material to allow for lateral thinking, then surely bamboo makes the cut in all sorts of areas.  Apparently, biking is yet another area where bamboo has a direct application.

Take a look at this article about bamboo bike frames as published in the tech magazine Wired.   Basically, it’s about a bike frame manufacturer in Las Vegas who literally grows his bikes in a field, since they’re made from bamboo. He grows them bonsai style, which means that they are ‘pruned’ into shape using barriers to enforce the right shapes and angles.

The bikes themselves aren’t cheap, since they’re made to order.  So, maybe you don’t want to turn in your aluminum frame just yet.  But, to me it’s the possibilities of this that are staggering.  Imagine the stress levels that are placed on a standard bike frame.

Yet one of the things about bamboo as a bike frame, beyond how naturally lightweight it is, is that it absorbs vibration extremely efficiently, better than many types of alloy.  It most likely helps that the bamboo frame is augmented by carbon fiber and titanium components too.  Yet, many of the others components are also taken from natural materials.

From the article:

The bamboo frame tubes are held together with lugs made from a hemp epoxy composite; long strips of hemp fiber soaked in epoxy that dry to create tough and durable lugs.

The article talks about those who buy this kind of bike as making a statement.  Bamboo seems to be the poster-material for the green movement.  I wonder how widespread something like this is likely to get. Bamboo is an established material for flooring of course.  I’d be interested to see how many of us will be riding bamboo bikes in the next few years too.

Cheers!
Rob.

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