Bamboo has over recent years generated so much attention that it might be perceived as the material for the 21st century, a beacon of sustainability, and a material so overused to sell the ‘green’ movement that we are led to believe that anything made from bamboo must be eco-friendly.
Bamboo is nature’s lightest-weight material, the result of being the fastest-growing plant in the world, with some species of this grass growing by 1 meter (3 feet) per day. It is a material that, in the right climate, you can grow virtually on your doorstep (potentially leading to low transportation costs), can be used to construct a building within five years of planting, and will continue to grow after it has been harvested. With its excellent strength-to-weight ratio, it can be split into strips, which can be woven into baskets and furniture and, with nutritional, medicinal and structural properties it’s the ideal material for when you are stranded on a desert island.
Bamboo has been used in tropical and subtropical countries for centuries, with the skills of harvesting and construction being passed down for hundreds of years. With around 75 species it is another material that, if humans had invented it, would be heralded as a wonder material, up there with Teflon and Velcro. In contemporary design and architecture, the unique qualities of this natural material provide a rich source from which new uses are constantly being sought.
Image: Bambu Table by Henry Tjearby for Artek
•300–400 kg/m3 (18–25 lbs/ft3)
•Rapidly renewable
•Excellent strength-to-weight ratio
•Low energy processing
•Versatile processing
•Good flexing
Sources
Most of the harvesting of bamboo takes place in tropical South Asia and South East Asia.
Cost
Relatively inexpensive.
Sustainability issues
It is a self-regenerating raw material. In contrast to harvesting wood from trees, which leads to intensive reforestation, bamboo regrows as soon as it has been harvested. It is over two and half times more cost efficient to convert to building materials than traditional wood and more than 50 times cheaper than steel. Author and sustainability entrepreneur Gunter Pauli claims of bamboo that: ‘on 500 square metres (5381 square feet) of land you can harvest a house each year’.
Production
The many uses of bamboo are a result of the ability of its fibres to be split and shredded. Beyond conventional pole structures, these fibres are also used in making textiles. As with trees and timbers, the exact properties of a piece of bamboo will depend on where the material is taken from in relation to the growth ring.
Typical applications
The use of bamboo as a material is growing almost as fast as the plant itself. It has a huge variety of uses: musical instruments, shelter, architecture, flooring, scaffolding, roofing, medicine, cellulose, paper, bridges, baskets, furniture, bamboo plywood, and wind protection in farming. In Hong Kong it is used for scaffolding for buildings as high as 70 storeys due to it being more flexible than steel and able to flex in high winds. In the aftermath of typhoons in Asia steel scaffolding has collapsed while bamboo is still standing. Its fibres can be shredded and converted into fibres to make textiles.
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–Low cost –Light and strong –Extremely elastic –Multitude of uses –Rapidly renewable |
–Care must be taken to ensure it is responsibly sourced and processed |